check out Lakrosse's comment, post directly below yours.

It's only an insult to the misogynistic portion of Hillary's voters -- that portion of Hillary's voters that only voted for her because she's married to Bill, and are hoping for a repeat of Bill's presidency from behind the scenes, and would never ever vote for any other woman that can't promise them that.

Since Sebelius isn't married to Bill, you see, it's an insult to Hillary. Only women that are married to Bill are worth anything at all.

It's a really bizarre version of sexism that I find completely baffling.  If you figure it out, let me know.

with Clinton winning the nomination and Obama a close second, would you find it offensive if she picked Harold Ford Jr so she could say she had a black man on the ticket, would it be offensive to Obama supporters?

Well hardly anyone voted for those other guys, so just insulting a few Quixotic fools is not a big deal.

Sebelius?  Insulting beyond belief.  Pure proof that he doesn't get it.  

And clearly she is not the most qualified.  If you continue to pretend to not see this, then no further discussion of it is possible.

... if he doesn't, mccain will.

...and what you've brought out is the reductio ad absurdum of a bankrupt identity politics. For the last six months I've been hearing.

1.Obama supporters only support him because he's black (ergo they're reverse racists)
2. Feminism means voting for Hillary Clinton.

So here we have the ne plus ultra of that false syllogism. Obama is black, so black equals Obama. Hillary is a woman, ergo woman equals Hillary.

When will we get back to some real politics instead of this celebrity symbolism? i.e. which candidate male/female/white/black/transgendered abyssinian will actually do something?

the explanation lies in the feminist movement, the idea that the most qualified applicant who is a woman should be hired.  The women who back Hillary don't see her as a symbol of women, and thus replaceable with any other woman, but as a person who prepared for the job and made herself the most qualified. She even talked about it that way, as a job and the campaign as a long job interview.  She got that NYT endorsement against their inclination because of the interview. Not one question stumped her, she knew her stuff and her solutions were practical and doable.  She wasn't just a girl candidate to us, some girl, but the best candidate who also happened to be female. That's why we're pissed at Dean, for not speaking to the sexism, and pissed at Barack (although many of us will vote for him, like me) because of the charges he made. These things were heard differently by women of a certain age, and they may have passed under the radar of many men and some younger women who had not been there for the equal rights amendment failures.  When I got out of college, Hillary and I are the same age, I had to learn to type, any male college grad had a guaranteed entry level job in most businesses, but no women. We had to be better prepared and we often lost promotions to younger less qualified men.  it happened to me more than once, and I once got a settlement from a class action suit, and I ended up returning to graduate school and getting a professional degree, where I at least had a fighting chance, and even then I faced sexism, it got to be funny. You know, some staff meeting and I make some suggestion and then later I hear how great the suggestion I made was, only they forgot it was me and attributed it to one of the guys, who didn't correct anyone and maybe thought he'd made my suggestion. Things have improved, no doubt, but not as much as you'd think.  Even women tend to blame the woman who got passed over, because they want a reason that is under their own control.  Look at Maureen Dowd, who has written about sexism but claims it played no part in Hillary's defeat.  To us this stuff is plain weird.  

That's the past, but if he passed her over to pick a women who is less qualified and hadn't even applied in the first place? It would be seen as an insult and even if he didn't mean it that way, he'd have to be completely unwilling to listen to us, to do such a thing. He'd be saying to us, you only backed her cause she's a girl, here's another one, you're all replaceable.  If he picks someone who isn't Hillary that person must be at least as qualified as she and have at least tried to run for president on his own. And even then, since HIllary would help him most to win, it would be wrong of him, he'd be picking his personal comfort level over the best ticket to win.  

Still, things are what they are, and it's not up to me, although I've ben trying to help him avoid these mistakes, by giving him a heads up on how what he says comes across to women.  But, I'm a nobody, he isn't listening to me.  

I hated Bill Clinton in 1992, yet I cast my vote for him.  Over the years I came to admire the man and saw him as MY guy.  

The same would probably be true of Sebelius.  By the end of Obama's first term, she'd be one of my heros.

I apologize if my post hurt your feelings, but you were wrong to hide rate me. Please uprate the post to at least a 1.

1) You are wrong on the rules. From the trusted user guidelines:

Please use your "zero" rating with care! It is only for use on comments that are wholly content-free. If you think the poster is clueless, or an idiot, or you just don't agree with them, that is not grounds for a zero rating. Zero is for comments that are offensive, script-generated, or otherwise content-free and intended solely to abuse other readers.

My post was not content free, and it was not posted solely to abuse other readers. It is not even slamming Democrats, because Lieberman is not a Democrat. He is a member of the Connecticut for Leiberman Party, and it looks like he may soon officially become a Republican. So what it comes down to is you hide rated me for having a different religious outlook than you. That is not enlightened behavior.

2) You are wrong on the facts. I was not slamming Leiberman's commitment to his moral values, I was slamming the phoniness of his commitment.

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/36/story_ 3609_1.html

Lieberman is doubly interesting because he is the Senate's first Orthodox Jew: genuinely observant--walks to synagogue on Sabbath--though a member of the "modern Orthodox" movement, which is strictly observant of religious rules but open-minded on political and cultural matters. (Lieberman has already clarified that he could perform White House work on Saturdays if vice president, because Orthodoxy allows a Sabbath exception for those whose jobs serve the general public interest.)

Do you see how facile Leiberman is with his application of Shabbat rules? He makes sure we all know how very observant he is by not campaigning on the Sabbath, but he also makes sure we know his observance will not disqualify him. He is one of those people who like to shove their religion in everyone's faces, for their own aggrandizement.

I'd hate for Bill Clinton's legacy to be the following:

1. Cheated on wife, impeached (unfairly)

2. Made serious gaffes during wife's primary, helped her lose
   
3. Worked to block first viable female VP (Sebelius).

also has ties to Michigan.  There aren't that many people with ties to both Michigan and Ohio AND have executive governing experience AND a progressive record AND a clean enough background to be on the national ticket.

It amazes me how short people are selling Sebelius--even if Obama doesn't pick her (and I don't think he will) she's an incredible asset to the party.

Oh well - Time and Governing?  How can I disagree?  Count me in - not

"Which is why on his most important decision prior to the election Obama better not show that he doesn't have the right stuff to be president."

Funny, I had a few people say the same thing to me, except for the "right stuff" is NOT picking Hillary.

Agreed: The worst VP he could possibly choose is Clinton, and it'd be making me reconsider my support for him.

He managed picking his VP quite well.

No not in the democratic party.

No not this close to the election.

No not covering the flaws in this particular candidate who is in trouble.

He really doesn't have a choice its Hillary or defeat.

Yes but an ordinary woman may not be ready to lead until day two or even three...a frightening prospect.

I think they're of the opinion that only a hawkish, second-wave feminist type is ready to lead (on day one). And that is the only type of woman that would be "experienced" and "tough".  

There seem to be many PUMA's that are still living in a second-wave feminist universe and they're battling the third-wave feminists with the same zeal they used to take on patriarchal society.  They still consider feminism in purely reactive terms for example: if a patriarchal society thrives the only way to break through that barrier is by taking on the worst traits of the male sex.  Hence you have the ridiculous neo-con jingoism that you saw from the Clinton campaign, which the second-wave PUMA types wholeheartedly responded to.

Maybe someday I'll write a diary on the topic since it was one of the more fascinating aspects of the primary wars.

Oh for god's sake.  First, if we failed to worship at the alter of Obama, we are racists. Now if we still like Hillary, we are misognysts?  Talk about Rovian.  Really.

I'm getting more and more convinced that a large portion of the deadender Clintonistas are simply misogynists that were hoping for Bill to be in control of a Hillary presidency from behind the scenes.

Nothing else justifies their hatred towards all other female candidates other than Hillary.

WEll, I think you're half-right, but I think you're overlooking something about Obama's short list: with the exceptions of Tim Kaine and Evan Bayh, nobody on it is really "future nominee and leader of the party" material, if you look at their ages.  Biden was born in '42, Bayh in '55, Sebelius in '48, and Kaine in '58.  And none of the other potential veeps being bandied about, including Hillary, are younger than that.  After eight years--assuming an Obama/Whoever win in November, and an Obama renomination in 2012--these names are largely going to be past their campaigning prime, and certainly past their "future of the party" potential.

I think Obama is trying to make sure that he is the future of the party, and is going to look for a Veep who specifically won't be campaigning in eight years, because that eliminates the tension between his agenda and his Veep's ambition.  I think he wants to have an open nomination in 2016, and let someone from the Cabinet, or another upstart, take up the torch (putting it another way, Lloyd Bentson was never planning to run for President himself after a Dukakis term, but Quayle and Gore both were after their respective administrations).  I think Obama wants a Veep who'll govern with him, not one who'll want to inherit from him.