The Dish

A reader writes:

I live in Grand Rapids, Michigan. My friends in this conservative town are overwhelmingly taken with Obama and the hope he represents to finally move beyond the futile politics of the past many years.

The only people I know voting for Hillary are women with strong feminist leanings. And the only reasons these women can offer for their vote is gender.

Everyone else thinks Hillary is slime. For us, this week presents a tough decision:

Do we vote for a true patriot, statesman, and capable candidate — John McCain … or do we take pleasure in voting against the Hillary-Machine and give our vote to "Uncommitted".

Tough choices. Following Obama’s example, I am taking the positive road and voting for McCain. Many of my Democratic friends loathe Hillary and will vote for McCain too.

I would too. The Michigan primary is meaningless for the Democrats. But it is critical to stop Romney and help McCain. The Romney-McCain battle is similar to the Clinton-Obama struggle: integrity against hollowness, the party establishment against someone who could help repair his party’s soul. At this point, I hope the old war-horse wins. Can you imagine how good it would be for America and the world to have a good, constructive campaign between Obama and McCain than a Romney-Clinton fake-off?

A blogger worries. If you missed David Boaz on Paul’s ugly newsletters, here he is. I second every word.

In South Carolina, from the State. And in Michigan too.

Rudy goes to church.

From the comments section on this piece:

Biden: I have worked with chairs all over the world, and most members of Congress agree with my plan for how to make chairs Bloomberg: I’ve put together a committee to survey voters on whether they want me to make their chairs Clinton: I have the most experience in making chairs Edwards: I will fight the chairmakers!

Giuliani: I can best protect you from the danger of chairs, just as I did in NYC

Huckabee: Chairs did not evolve, but were created

Kucinich: We should have a one-payer system for chairs

McCain: My friends, I believe we can sit together in our chairs and work out bipartisan solutions without torture

Obama: Together we can create chairs in a new way

Paul: Why is the government involved in making chairs?

Romney: Venture capitalism has made American chairs the greatest in the world

Tancredo: We must build a fence to keep out foreign illegal chairs

Thompson: I like a comfortable, yet presidential looking chair

The U.S. intelligence tsar talks about waterboarding.

They trash other people’s signs. McCain’s. And Paul’s.

A reader writes:

I live in Illinois and will be out of town on February 5th — Super Tuesday — when our state votes.  Our early voting opens tomorrow and I have been torn between voting for Obama or Clinton.  I have gone back and forth a number of times.  I watched Hillary’s MTP appearance today and was less than impressed.  Clinton was abrasive, defensive and brash.  What happened to the "human" Hillary we saw the day before New Hampshire?  More evidence it was all an act. 

She made a number of disingenuous explanations for her attacks on Obama, and I started seriously questioning her ability to be truthful.  After reading Robert Johnson’s veiled — and very tired — reference to Obama’s past drug use, I made up my mind.  I am voting for Obama.  He may not have Hillary’s experience, but he also does not have her constitutional inability to be honest, and for that I am thankful.

A reader writes:

I know you hate the Clintons, despite the fact that, all his failings aside, he was a good president who left the country in better shape than he found it. And he was able to achieve that despite the persecution (what else can you call the impeachment?) from the right. And Hilary does have her failings.

But you don’t put yourself in a good light when you write: "And has any former president, and titular head of his party, directly made fundraising pitches for one candidate before? The brazenness of it is classically Clinton."

I mean, come on. It’s his wife. Never before has an ex-president’s wife run for President. What do you expect him to do? Stay on the sidelines? And I don’t remember hearing similar criticism when #41 campaigned and fund-raised for his son.

Campaigning for your wife isn’t "brazen." And your characterization of it as such shows how you really have zero ability to be objective when it comes to anything related to the Clintons.

No. I’m not objective on the Clintons. But it’s an opinion gained from many years of observing their cynicism, shallowness, self-serving machinations and self-righteousness. And, no, I do not believe that Bill Clinton is doing what he’s doing out of marital duty either. Please. We all know what Bill Clinton believes he owes his wife as a wife. But what he owes her as a political device to regain power for the two of them is another matter. And the truth is: former president Bush never trashed his son’s rivals as Bill Clinton has Obama; and has kept an admirable arm’s length distance from his son’s administration. Bill Clinton is campaigning for himself as well right now, his own future power. He’ll be in a Clinton White House, ready from Day One. And if they get there for a third term, the marital psychodrama they inflicted on us for eight long years will be with us once again.

Worth checking in with Juan Cole for the customary skepticism:

The headlines are all saying that the law permits Baathists back into public life. It seems actually to demand that they be fired or retired on a pension, and any who are employed are excluded from sensitive ministries.

My attempt to make sense of it is here.