I'm liking her less and less
I never got what the right hated so much about Hillary Clinton. From the time of her husband's presidential campaign right up to today, the right has villified, belittled and otherwise attacked Sen. Clinton. I always thought that, were I an American, I wouldn't have any problem voting for her for president. Lately, I'm not so sure. It's not just that fact that she voted to authorize the war, I'd be willing to give her that error, lots of people made the same one. But she swallowed the whole thing hook, line and sinker and now she denies that was the case.

In voting to hand George W. Bush the keys to the war machine, she said:

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001.

It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security.

Now this much is undisputed. The open questions are: what should we do about it? How, when, and with whom?

....This is a very difficult vote. This is probably the hardest decision I have ever had to make -- any vote that may lead to war should be hard -- but I cast it with conviction."

Furthermore, she went to Iraq in 2005 and stood next to John McCain and told the American people that everything was going well in Iraq when anyone with eyes could tell it was not.

That's stike one

Strike two would be her refusal to bow out for the good of the party once things became inevitable. By this I don't mean after she failed to sweep Super Tuesday or anything of that kind, but she has been more or less mathematically eliminated since she failed to sweep to a massive victory in Pennsylvania. She couldn't quite seal the deal on her comeback there and without doing so there, she was done, short of Obama being caught with a live boy or a dead girl. She was way behind him on fundraising, the superdelegates had started to shift away from her to Obama and yet she hung on, loaning the campaign another few million dollars of her own money in the hope of finding a magic bullet.

I don't think her pathetic attempt to get Florida and Michigan included in the totals after agreeing like everyone else that they would not count is grounds to deny her the nomination, though I do think it stinks.

I don't think her pandering to the right by talking about obliterating Iran or talking about how she learned to shoot from her grandpappy or pretending she's a beer and shot kinda blue-collar gal is reason to deny her the nomination. It's lame, but its something any politician would do.

I don't even mind the wounded tones and righteous indignation of her supporters when they complain about how the boys are ganging up on her and that the mass media is sexist. Surely as good feminists they already knew this, so throwing a fainting spell over it isn't gaining them any sympathy from me. Putting Hillary on Hardball and letting her call Chris Matthews on his horrible misogyny on air would have solved a lot of the problem - does anyone think she wouldn't have eaten his lunch? - but Clinton and her people were too afraid of another "I don't stay home and bake cookies" moment and decided to play victim instead.

I wouldn't even hold here poor choices in campaign staff against her - though why anyone would pick Mark Penn again is a bit of a mystery.

Nope, strike three, and this is really the dealbreaker, is her more or less naked appeals to racism.

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

While racism has raised its ugly little cracker-assed head a few times in the campaign, this is the first time a candidate has simultaneously courted racists, displayed racism and told her supporter that they were uneducated bigots and that was fine with her.

She's lost, and now its just a matter of getting her out before she burns the house down.

Now, having said all that, if Obama were to be struck by lightning, a bus, or a crazed KKK member, would I advise voting for Hillary over McCain? You bet your ass I would.