I got an email on this tangent today from the Opinion Journal. They were saying that criticizing Romney for having polygamist grandfathers somehow reflected negatively on him when both he and his faith have repudiated the practice. The O/J compaired this to claims of the "media" to not look into Hillary and Bill's previous relationship issues. On that point I agree, neither one of them matter to me. However, they then went on to criticize her for sticking with him (imagine a conservative political publication launching into a character assassination immediately after denouncing that practice).

Despite all of that, The only complaint that I saw that might have any sticking power was that she refocused the criticism of her husband to a "vast right-wing conspiracy." That that said, I think that one can accurately say that the right made a mountain out of a molehill and the whole affair (pun intended) was a black mark on both parties.

But, her personal life does not matter to me. It is easy to say that she stuck with him for personal reasons, but I can't access that information. It is definitely ironic that conservative that are always harping the shame of the high divorce rate, are criticizing a person for staying with their mate through a difficult time in their marriage.

As a Democrat especially, I don't care one bit about Hillary Clinton's personal life. That's her business and it's not relevant to the way the country is run-- I have the same opinion about the other candidates as well as far as personal matters.

What I do care about, is that Hillary has been a consistent supporter and enabler of the disastrous Iraq War, almost as much as top Republicans, and if anything has been even more hawkish on Iran. All this while she takes on rather repulsive stands against the working and middle classes of America, like supporting policies to further encourage outsourcing of software jobs when we're already being hard hit, and making it harder for families in debt, due to e.g. illness or injuries on the job, to get Chap. 11 protections.

And I'm sick of her antics that are so damaging to her fellow Democrats, like her attacks on John Kerry and Barack Obama. She joined in with the Republican spin machine by twisting John Kerry's words last year. Even worse, she lied outright about Obama-- she had a dispute with David Geffen, then she arrogantly and mendaciously drew Obama into it by claiming that Geffen was on Obama's campaign staff, as Obama's finance chairman, which he isn't.

To boil this down further-- I won't vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2008 if she's the Democratic nominee. For the first time, I'll actually be looking at the variety of non-mainstream parties on the ballot that we otherwise ignore. Barack Obama I like a lot, someone like Chris Dodd or even John Edwards I could tolerate. But Hillary goes so fundamentally against what it means to be a Democrat for me, I won't vote for her, and frankly from the looks of it, nor will anyone else my generally Democratic street.

The Democratic nominating committees had better not pretend that we'll just happily go out and cast a vote in large numbers for whomever they nominate, because we won't. Democrats already control Congress and we could tolerate another 4 years of a not-too-conservative Republican like Giuliani if need be, to prevent a pseudo-Democrat like Hillary Clinton from getting office in our name.

I admire Hillary for staying. For better or for worse gets tough at times. Her decision to stay is positive as far as I am concerned.

And politically, how different is Hillary from Giuliani?