South of the Suwannee

The Sun-Sentinel finds Hillary Clinton's election night trip to Florida, at which she thanked the Democrats who voted for her (about half of them, it turned out) worthy of a scathing editorial:

. . . about nine seconds after the polls closed Tuesday, there was Hillary Clinton in Davie, having a victory party and claiming momentum, and how Florida is going to be so important. She would have been better served just thanking Florida voters from afar, and going on to a Super Tuesday state.

Naturally the Sun-Sentinel editoral writers find this Florida visit to be an indication of Sen. Clinton's lack of integrity; because she didn't campaign in Florida (which no other Democratic candidate did, either) she has now forfeited her right to enter the state?

Admittedly, she gained no delegates as the result of the primarly vote, but she did receive over half of the votes cast for candidates that were still in the race -- that should count for something.

Maybe the real problem is that the Sun-Sentinel editoral board endorsed Obama, and then Clinton carried Broward County by almost 57 percent of the votes cast.

James Fallows (the proverbial man from Mars)saw the Republican debate and had some observations:

When Romney asked Giuliani a specific question about how to deal with China, the answer reminded me of the way I would sound if asked to fill 90 seconds discussing my favorite fashion designers.

Boy, do these people hate Hillary Clinton! Her name was mentioned at least ten times as often as George Bush's

The intrusiveness and badgering nature of Tim Russert's questions! I wonder whether the two parties will subject themselves to another presidential cycle of "debating" on these demeaning terms.

Fallows never fails to bring a fresh perspective to whatever he writes about. Compared to him, his fellow Atlantic bloggers resemble middle school students writing nasty notes about some girl that wouldn't go out with them.

Andrew Sullivan seems to have the goods on Hillary. He posts:

The Clinton spin is obvious:

"He only won it because of black votes, so it doesn't really count."

Wow! He has an actual quote from the Clinton camp.

Oh, wait.

Follow the link and you'll find the comment within the quotation marks was not uttered by Senator Clinton, her husband or anyone associated with her campaign. Rather it came from Mark Kleiman, who seems to be an Obama supporter, but more importantly one of Sullivan's fellow Hillary haters.

Which editor at the Sun-Sentinel supported including this reader op-ed in today's newspaper?

So, as a man, I am kind of wondering how this would work if Sen. Clinton became President Clinton. Presumably, every mode of transportation would be full of women from every corner of the earth flocking to America because they would not have to worry about trifling matters such as immigration status, citizenship, and health care. Presumably also, any man swimming upstream against the inflowing tide of women would be declared "illegal" and sent back to wherever. Do I read it right: "Men need not apply?" Men, you still are illegal?

Critically, how would the United States — which most people believe is sliding into a recession — support this incoming tide of women? Easy, they would be supported by another of Hillary's favorite programs — the Violence Against Women Act. It works this way. All non-illegal women would immediately marry (or at least have a child with) any available legal U.S. citizen — male, of course. At anytime of her choosing following the delivery of her baby, the newly minted non-illegal woman simply goes to any local family court judge and declares that she is "afraid" of her formerly legal male citizen. The family court judge, without hearing the man's side of the story, immediately issues a restraining order making the formerly legal male citizen now a non-legal male citizen. What a VAWA restraining order means to the man is that he is thrown out of the house, required to stay away from his non-illegal wife and child, and immediately required to begin paying exorbitant child-support to this non-illegal woman for 18 years.

This sounds more like the kind of emails I get that tell me to read and forward to all my friends (you know, the ones that claim Obama is a Muslim, Hillary is a lesbian and that all immigrants get $10,000 from the government free and clear) than something I would find on the Sun-Sentinel opinion page. But there it is.

Here's the kicker . . . the author of this screed is a professor of psychology at FIU, a Gordon Finley. I'm sure that the female students in his classes will get a big kick out of this.

Update: Mother Jones magazine explores this "reader forum" phenomenon in an article titled "Stop the Press Releases!" The article looks at reader participation at the Tallahassee Democrat and notes

The print edition [of the Democrat] now includes a smorgasbord of reader-submitted content such as "HomeRoom," a page of school news generated by parents and school administrators. Rather than freeing up time for reporters to cover important stories, the new model often means simply laying off salaried pros and putting the squeeze on whoever survives the cuts.

(via Flablog)

Once again, Andrew Sullivan is conveniently supplied with an email by a reader who perfectly validates his anti-Hillary tirades.

All the standard elements are included: the bullying Clinton supporters, the racism of the Clinton campaign, the comparisons to Karl Rove, and (most unbelievably to me) the assertion that if Hillary is the nominee, the reader will vote for McCain rather than her.

I really wonder what person who supports Obama (and admittedly would have supported Clinton) would find John McCain an acceptable alternative? Exactly what policy positions do they hold in common? Almost none, of course, but this seems to be the fiction Sullivan would have us believe.

Frankly, I think these emails are too good to be true, including the "reader's" concluding statement: "And I just thought you were so excitable about the Clintons. Maybe you were only a Diva-hater. I should've known better. You must get tired of telling people 'I told you so'."

Sun-Sentinel editorial on Castro not campaigning for a seat in the Cuban National Assembly:

Fidel Castro said this week that he's not healthy enough to campaign for Sunday's elections for the National Assembly.

You mean he actually ran before? Maybe we missed something, but an election is something where you have an opponent with different ideas, maybe even representing different political parties.[my emphasis]

Mark Lane (Flablog) in a post on the possibility of Skip Campbell challenging Jeff Atwater for his State Senate seat:

You know how many contested, D versus R, state Senate races there were in 2006? Five out of 20 seats up for election.

Does that mean the 15 Senators who did not run against an opponent were not legitimately elected?

Roy Edroso sees the future and it's not pretty, which means it's a lot like the past:

If Obama gets the nomination, we'll get Willie Horton II (and possibly III, IV, and infinity); if Clinton gets it, the position papers of the opposition will resemble the taunting letters-to-the-editor of serial killers of prostitutes, and if Edwards wins they will all be written by the Club for Growth and Mr. Burns from "The Simpsons."

It seems the brain trust at The Corner is upset that Jon Stewart made Jonah Goldberg "look like a twit" on the Daily Show last night.

Bad faith on Stewart's part, claims Mark Steyn.

Listen up, pinheads, Jon Stewart is not Charlie Rose -- he's a comedian. I mean, if Al Franken was to go on Rush Limbaugh's comedy show would be expect a detached, intellectual discussion?

Same thing.

Ezra Klien: Andrew Sullivan's posts reveal "the real world thought processes of someone who genuinely loathes Hillary Clinton. Everything becomes evidence of personal cynicism and ambition. Nothing is a slip, or harmless, or just politics. Every word, gesture, and political feint is evidence of Shakespearian levels of cynicism and power-lust."

Andrew Sullivan is a conservative, of sorts. He doesn't exactly follow along with most of what the Republican Party stands for, at least those aspects that affect him personally, so one shouldn't be surprised that he is no fan of Hillary Clinton.

I do find some of the "reader comments" he posts to be a bit suspicious, however.

This morning he "quoted" one:

I suspect that if Hillary wins this thing the way she's trying to win it -- by race-baiting -- black folk will indeed abandon her. Your reader makes the added mistake of underestimating Huckabee's potential appeal to blacks: he won 40 percent of the black vote in Arkansas. This black voter will certainly give him a closer look if Hillary wins. She's lost my vote. And she was my first choice until quite recently.

First of all, is Sen. Clinton really "race baiting," at least in any sensible definition of the phrase? And does anyone who gives this matter more than a moment's thought believe that there is a great pool of voters susceptible to this tactic that would vote for Hillary under any circumstance? I don't think the "good ol' boys" are going to climb on the Clinton bandwagon unless she showed up in a white robe and hood with a burning cross.

But I am particularly incredulous at the final two sentences of the quote.

This seems to be a fairly common sentiment being sent to the various members of the He Man Women Haters Club -- the voter who was all for Hillary, but suddenly saw the light and now would not vote for her under any circumstances.

I don't know a lot of people who think like this -- all for a candidate and then entirely against them.

Sullivan, however, believes that they exist and keeps getting all these emails to back him up.

Very convenient.

I thought the Oliphant cartoon in today's Sun-Sentinel was a little overboard in its anti-Hillary Clinton message, but apparently the cartoonist is a long-standing member of the He Man Women Haters Club (Andrew Sullivan, Chairman).

On this morning's Meet the Press, Tim Russert devoted the entire interview of Hillary Clinton to trying to catch her in contradictions and get her to offer intemperate attacks on Barack Obama.

Some of this is OK, but it would have been useful to question her on some of her substantive positions. Didn't she just release her economic plan?

Along the same lines, Tom Watson consults his "Matthews Meter" to see how misogynistic journalism is doing.