BTW... My mother, a middle-aged Massachusetts woman who loves Hillary, is in an even worse boat. She actually IS leaning toward McCain. Nothing particularly bad about Obama, and she thinks McCain would extend stupid Bush policies, but overall, she prefers McCain.

I would argue that the inexperience argument against Obama is a red herring. Go and check up his legislative record in Illinois. Go and check it up in the US Senate. Consider how effectively he organized the business of running a campaign. Look at the anti-nuclear-proliferation legislation he has authored with Senator Lugar, while the Bushies did nothing to stop loose nukes in Russia. Think about his remarkable feat of getting every single REPUBLICAN as well as every single Democrat in the Illinois legislature to vote, over the opposition of the governor, for his legislation that effectively enhanced defendants rights (the requirement that police interrogation in murder cases be videotaped, in order to prevent a repeat of the incidents in which Chicago area police were torturing innocents into confessions).

And think about the "experience" that McCain offers. Temper tantrums all over Washington. The Keating Five. Endorsing Bush on everything this year. Endorsing the Iraq War. As everyone on the internets from Obama partisan Kos to Hillary partisan Taylor Marsh has pointed out, this country cannot survive four years of this kind of "experience."

No, no, thank you for continuing to pelt the candidate of your party with discredited accusations.

This year, we call it "swiftboating." In 2012, we'll call it "rezkoing."

I'm interested in having people at least know what they're voting for. I want them to decide which issues are important and learn where the candidates stand on them, rather than make their decisions based on whether they'd like to have a beer with the candidate or, even worse, what the candidate's supporters are like on-line.

I read it because I am, in fact, greatly concerned about the way many of Hillary's supporters are becoming more and more intransigent the worse her chances get and I want to keep an eye on where their heads are as we close in in the nomination.

I also confess to a certain horrified, yet clinical, fascination with the evolving group dynamic. Its like reading papers on cognitive dissonance and groupthink, which, btw, people like yourself are invaluable in preventing here and for which I thank you.

But irony notwithstanding, I stand by my pique. I am sick unto death with the notions that a) Hillary supporters are owed an apology by Obama or his supporters about the way they've been treated--the abuse has flowed both ways and has been equal and b) the way supporters act on the Internet have a damn thing to do with whether one should support the candidate.

If anyone wants to talk about real reconcilation beginning with an acknowledgement that the acrimony was mutual but the stakes going forward are high, I'm all for it. But, Lefty here is instead insisting that we must line up and kiss his/her ass as the price of his/her support in this crucial election. Personally, I decline to get into that line.

left, I know it's hard, but just ignore this pompous baiting from clearthinker. As you know, Senator Obama welcomes Independents.

I genuinely admire your ability to lean toward Obama despite all the hard feelings. I also admire your steadfast defense of Senator Clinton in a stubbornly hostile environment like TPM. I have personally appreciated your comments as a much-needed voice to break through the echo here.

But who cares what I think? I support Hillary. ;-)

So, because you don't like some of Obama's SUPPORTERS, you're going to vote for McSame? Grow up. Get a brain, or rent one. If an Obama supporter said the same thing you did, I'd tell him the same thing, too.

Why would you let anything that someone ELSE says or does affect your vote? I really think that is a waste of anyone's vote. Decide for yourself based on the issues that matter to you and who you think will deliver them.

If you honestly think that McCain is older and wiser (even though he wants to do things you disagree with) why would you want to support him? I would rather have someone who I wasn't certain of, but who agreed with my values than someone I thought was highly competent going after goals that are repugnant to me. By the way, I don't think McCain is competent at all; but you said his years of experience mattered to you the most.

Dick Cheney and George Bush have been extremely competent is dismantling our Constitution and reputation. Maybe someone with less experience in ruining everything they touch would have been a better bet.

Really, though; all of that is beside the point. What really is the most amazing and self-destructive is saying that because you don't like the behavior of what -- 20 Obama supporters here at TPM -- you will vote for someone else? That'll teach us a lesson! That really is the way adolescents think.

Try this on for size:

Holding a grudge is like eating rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.

When one gets off the board and listens to the candidates themselves, the rancor subsides. I have said this before, but it bears repeating. If Obama ever had the misfortune to read some of the divisive attacks being propagated in his name, he would most likely be disgusted. He will need all the support he can get in the general and insulting the nearly 50% of voters who chose HRC is not the way to get it.

AMEN! Not only that...rant coming...

It's virtually all virtual, it's all in blog unreality land. Long labored posts about the horrible rifts in the Democratic party and how we must worry about them! Hours spent on the imaginary! All imagined from intense immmersement in blog kung fu keyboard gaming tradition!

Used to be one could blame "the MSM" for this, but not any more, nosiree, it's blogs that are the center of the political war gaming now. Blogs like ones that proudly proclaim they love the horserace game and that's mainly what they're going to cover to the exclusion of what's going on in the world and invite all to participate in the game. That's where the TV producers and writers go now to get inspiration, to write Keith Olberman and Bill O'Reilly's nightly rants, not the other way around.

Bet it would be quite difficult to find someone who never looks at blogs who thinks there is a big rift in the Democratic party right now. It's all in your head, blog people, it's a game you're playing. Josh Marshall, in that link above, presumed people would become informed before playing the game, not that they would think this game is the most important information. (It's gotten to the point where my gut says "the horror, the horror" thinking of the future when I see yet another blog commenter proudly brag that they no longer read newspapers but get "informed" now by blogs alone.)

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. (H. L. Mencken)

I've posted this quote before, but I think it goes over the heads of those that most need to understand it. Clue: onne should not be thinking "oh that's like Bush and the neo-cons fearmongering." Wrong answer. One should be thinking, "oh, that's the Democratic primary as envisioned by the blogosphere."