Funny, isn't it, how guys like Kos, Stoller and Bowers were bitching not too long ago about the disproportionate influence of Iowa and New Hampshire upon the nominating process, screaming how neither state was representative of the US of A like a CA or a FL. Go check the archives, and you'll see all three complimentary of Hillary's decision to keep her name on the ballot in both states, admiring the fact she was playing to win while criticizing both Edwards and Obama for capitulating to blackmail.

Now look at them. Screaming that seating MI and FL at the convention would be a travesty. How all those new voters would be disenfranchised if we did anything to jeopardize Obama's chances at the nomination.

Fuck them. Where were they when we were disenfranchised in 2000? In 2002? In 2003? In 2004? What did they think? That all it took were letters, phone calls and faxes to their Congressmen and Senators to get them to change their votes and do the right thing? Look at how the vote over FISA is going. You really think the Dems would be letting Bush get his way if they were that concerned what Lefties were going to do come November? Last I heard, Ned Lamont isn't in the Senate, either.

Let's go back to the 60's, shall we? Y'know, that decade all the young kids wish would go away and we got over. Obama was just a kid and, oh yeah, he was living overseas during that decade as it's pretty likely he'd have experienced even harder times with his family in this country. His parents wouldn't have even legally been able to get married in CA prior to 1967, and pretty much scorned by the American public in general elsewhere walking around in public. You think Civil Rights legislation was passed back then because it was all Rodney King "can't-we-get-along" peace and love? Hell, you should have been in Boston during the early 70's when the riots over busing when on. Who could forget the classic image on the front pages of the Boston Globe showing a white guy using the American flag as a spear-like weapon against a black guy.

We made progress during those years, but not without a lot of pain, blood and sacrifice. Very similar to other eras of progressive action. Like the Civil War. Or the Great Depression. Or a less extreme example, the Women's Suffrage Movement.

I look around and I see Bush appoint radical stealth conservatives like a Roberts and Alito to the bench, and all I see is bitching and moaning anonymously on the internet instead of organizing protests in Washington DC and shutting down business in our nation's capital, putting some real fear into the ruling elite. When the Supreme Court screwed over Gore on December 12, 2000, the Left should have been out in force the next day making it clear the American public wouldn't stand for this perversion of the electoral process. All they could muster was throwing some eggs at Bush's limo and screwing up his inaugural.

So I explained to my son how it's all going to play out.

We're WAY beyond any delegate count at this juncture. If Obama wants the Presidency, he's going to have to get down in the mud with Hillary. Either way, it's pointless, as she's a much better streetfighter than he'll ever dream of being. Michelle's the one with the balls in that family.

I told him Obama can throw anything he can think of - NAFTA, the Iraq vote, Vince Foster, the Rose Law firm, Monica, whatever - and it won't work. She has taken the worst anyone can throw her way over the past 16 years plus, unlike him. Hasn't been vetted? Where were these people back in the 90's? Bill and Hillary would have both been facing jail sentences had the Right-wing even the smallest scrap of evidence to nail them with.

Hillary, on the other hand, will kick ass and take names. Broken bottles, brass knuckles, switchblades, name your weapon. All's fair. She KNOWS the Right isn't going to give up the Presidency without a fight to the death. That's way too much power to give up. She also knows there's going to be too many Republicans in office to deal with whether she or Obama are elected. We may get a few more seats in both the House and Senate, but not enough to guarantee shutting down Republican obstructionism. No matter who gets elected.

Anyone who supports Obama because of his 2002 speech on Iraq has to do cartwheels to justify that position given his record of , y'know, like actually voting to fund the war, totally ignorant of the fact that most voters don't care of what went down in 2002 simply because they're looking for answers in 2008, and they'd rather go with a known commodity despite her position back then rather than gamble on someone who claimed to have known better then, and hasn't the record to show he can back his talk with action.

(By the way, NAFTA was first voted on in December of 1992, BEFORE Bill Clinton was sworn in. Laying that solely at his doorstep is dishonesty of the highest order. He had enough battles to fight from the get-go without going toe-to-toe over reversing his predecessor's actions. The best he could hope for was making lemonade from lemons by tailoring the bill in ways that didn't screw the American worker over as badly as the Bush version had.)

I pointed out to my son that neither Bill or Hillary would have survived the 90's if they weren't the streetfighters they are. The irony of it is that the Lefties who support Obama can't see how much like the Right they've become in smearing Hillary, and I'm talking mostly about the guys here.

As a white guy nearing the half-century mark, I can spot sexism a mile away. I grew up with it in all its forms. Stollers, Bowers, Kos and others can protest all they want, but the mere fact they have to do such contortions to justify their support for Obama knowing full well the positions they took previously before coming out for him is just a part of the story. It's one of the many reasons the women are just now coming out in droves for Hillary, especially the older ones.

Look what you get in the so-called MSM. Where's the female equivalent of an O'Reilly or an Olbermann? FOX? CNN? MSNBC? Nada. Likewise, NBC and ABC are just as bad. CBS is no better, despite bringing on Katie Couric. They set back the Women's Movement putting such a lightweight in that chair. And it's not much better on the internet, either. I can think of five websites run by prominent women - Salon, Huffington Post, Taylor Marsh, Firedoglake and Digby - but I can count much higher how many prominent websites are run by guys, all of whom can be shown tossing all previously-held beliefs to the wind rather than support a candidate that is actually much closer to their positions than they'd care to admit.

They further demonstrate their sexism writing about the historic nature of Obama's candidacy while ignoring the fact that Hillary's candidacy is equally historic, not to mention writing how the young and Black voters will be disenfranchised while leaving out the point that women will also feel disenfranchised if Hillary isn't the nominee.

And it's here where I lay down the deciding factors to my son. There are more women who vote Democratic than any other voting block. The longer Hillary's campaign keeps going on, the more unstoppable she'll be because of those women voters. Equally important will be the domestic economy. The worse it gets over the coming weeks the better I like Hillary's chances. OH proved that and PA will ratify it resoundingly. Until the youth vote becomes as reliable a voting block as the seniors and the GOP gives black voters a reason to support them - neither of which I see happening in the foreseeable future, women will be the deciding factor this time around. (Should anyone think I'm a closet racist, I point to John Conyers and Chuck Rangel as examples of Black Power that voting Democratic will provide versus the white plantation mentality on the opposite side of the aisle, not to mention that  Obama would more than likely never have his opportunity at the Presidency if he were a Republican.)

Most hardcore Democratic voters won't care come the general election who the nominee is as long as they feel they're backing a winner. Right now, Obama had no less than three solid chances to put Hillary away, and failed each time, giving off the stench of a loser in the process.

Bottom line: Living through the assassinations of JFK, MLK, and RFK, not to mention Kent State and Watergate, was disillusioning. Hillary showing Obama being too weak to deserve the nomination doesn't even rate. Her support will eventually be shown to be much deeper and broader than Obama's ever was when all is said and done.