Four years later, just as she's leaving high school, the state Supreme Court says Newsom, and my daughter, were right. The language of the decision is stunningly, movingly clear: "Whether or not the name 'marriage,' in the abstract, is considered a core element of the state constitutional right to marry, one of the core elements of this fundamental right is the right of same-sex couples to have their official family relationship accorded the same dignity, respect, and stature as that accorded to all other officially recognized family relationships. The current statutes -- by drawing a distinction between the name assigned to the family relationship available to opposite-sex couples and the name assigned to the family relationship available to same-sex couples, and by reserving the historic and highly respected designation of marriage exclusively to opposite-sex couples while offering same-sex couples only the new and unfamiliar designation of domestic partnership -- pose a serious risk of denying the official family relationship of same-sex couples the equal dignity and respect that is a core element of the constitutional right to marry."

I particularly liked this, just two weeks after the death of gay-marriage-supporting Mildred Loving, one of the plaintiffs in Loving v. Virginia, which led to the Supreme Court striking down Virginia's ban on interracial marriage: "As observed... at oral argument, this court's conclusion in [a previous case] that the statutory provision barring interracial marriage was unconstitutional undoubtedly would have been the same even if alternative nomenclature, such as "transracial union," had been made available to interracial couples..."

Right on cue, some people are saying this gay marriage decision will doom the Democrats again, and I had two quick reactions: I honestly don't think so, and if it does, that's just the way it is. Six of seven Supreme Court justices were appointed by Republican governors, and three of them joined the 4-3 ruling (written by Republican Ronald George, who was appointed to the municipal bench by Ronald Reagan in 1972) that said, in fairly conservative language, that marriage is too important to society to exclude gay Californians. Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has said he'll uphold the ruling and will fight an effort to amend the state's constitution to overturn the ruling. Let John McCain try to ride this issue to a victory in California. I don't see it.

As I've written before, I was once a cowardly civil unions supporter; I thought gay marriage was deadly for Democrats. But taking that position was like living in a dark, cramped house with low ceilings. Watching the explosion of love and jubilation -- and weddings, thousands of weddings -- that greeted Newsom's legalizing gay marriage in 2003 here in San Francisco was like walking out into bright sunlight. You just can't go back and live in politically and morally cramped quarters anymore.

That's happened to so many Americans already: Last year I highlighted San Diego Republican Mayor Jerry Sanders, who had promised to veto a City Council resolution supporting efforts to overturn California's ban on gay marriage, but who changed his mind. He credited his daughter Lisa and gay staff members for his change of mind, and heart. "In the end, I could not look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships -- their very lives -- were any less meaningful than the marriage that I share with my wife, Rana," Sanders said. The California Supreme Court caught up to Jerry Sanders.

I'd have liked to see Jerry Sanders-style courage from the Democratic nominees, but both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama issued shockingly cautious statements today. With so little to lose, Clinton could afford to be bolder, but her campaign said only: "Hillary Clinton believes that gay and lesbian couples in committed relationships should have the same rights and responsibilities as all Americans and believes that civil unions are the best way to achieve this goal. As President, Hillary Clinton will work to ensure that same sex couples have access to these rights and responsibilities at the federal level. She has said and continues to believe that the issue of marriage should be left to the states."

Obama was equally cautious, even though, as Alex Koppelman already noted, the ruling pretty much explicitly shattered his oft-stated assertion that the difference between "civil unions" and marriage is largely a question of "semantics." As he said at last year's Human Rights Campaign debate, "My view is that we should try to disentangle what has historically been the issue of the word 'marriage,' which has religious connotations to some people, from the civil rights that are given to couples....[A]s I've proposed it, [civil unions] wouldn't be a lesser thing, from my perspective." The California Supreme Court said today that's not possible; the Obama campaign said this in response: "Barack Obama has always believed that same-sex couples should enjoy equal rights under the law, and he will continue to fight for civil unions as President. He respects the decision of the California Supreme Court, and continues to believe that states should make their own decisions when it comes to the issue of marriage." When Koppelman asked the campaign to comment on the contradiction between Obama's view and the court's ruling, a spokesman said: "[Obama] continues to believe that states should make their own decisions when it comes to the issue of marriage."

I'm proud to live in San Francisco today. I'm proud of Mayor Newsom, and City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who led the smart, sober legal crusade to get the court to uphold Newsom's decision (here's a great, timely story on Herrera's work). And I'm proud of my daughter and her generation, who see this issue clearly – and the older generation that is belatedly catching up.

The Republican in charge of the party's congressional elections, Tom Cole, seemed to wave a white flag last night, warning his party: "I encourage all Republican candidates, whether incumbents or challengers, to take stock of their campaigns and position themselves for challenging campaigns this fall by building the financial resources and grassroots networks that offer them the opportunity and ability to communicate, energize and turn out voters this election." In other words, every man for himself.

Of special note, efforts to tie Childers to Obama seemed to backfire. If the Rev. Wright issue didn't work in a safe GOP district in Mississippi, I'm not sure where it will work. Another note to Republicans: Send Dick Cheney back to an undisclosed location through January 2009. His visit sure didn't help Davis.

I don't think Democrats can afford to take November for granted, as readers of this blog know well. But even I'm having an optimistic day. I'll be talking about all of this on MSNBC's "Hardball" tonight.

Now the question becomes whether and how he can win over her white working-class supporters. It's been dispiriting to visit some lefty blogs, and as well as some Salon letters threads, and read the contempt and, well, elitism expressed by some (not most) Obama supporters. Dawnt, a Daily Kos diarist, wrote this passionate response on Monday, but I just saw it today. Democrats who care about widening the party's base should read it.

I'll have more when all the results are in.

But the McCain camp is ramping up against Obama, and maybe it thinks he's vulnerable on this one. I have occasionally wished Obama himself would say something about the often-sexist viciousness Clinton has faced, but it's probably too much to ask in a campaign this contentious. Certainly Ted Kennedy didn't help Obama on Friday when he said Clinton wasn't a good candidate to be Obama's running mate and suggested that she wasn't "in tune with his appeal for the nobler aspirations" of the American people. Rep. Rahm Emanuel slapped Kennedy on Sunday, telling the New York Times (probably to make up for sounding like it was all over for Clinton on Friday): "I have a lot of respect for Ted Kennedy, but I don't know how the hell he comes off saying that. The gratuitous attack on her is uncalled for and wrong. He is a better senator than that comment reveals.”

I've talked about Clinton's need, in the closing days of the campaign, to improve her tone; clearly Obama too needs to work not to alienate Clinton supporters. He's done a great job being gracious all week, from his victory speech in North Carolina May 6 to his remarks to CNN's Wolf Blitzer that she'd be on "anybody's shortlist" for vice president. But Obama should be careful to make sure surrogates like Kennedy don't squander the goodwill he's trying to build. I'm not sure Clinton merits or wants the V.P. slot, but she at least deserves more respect than Kennedy showed while both campaigns figure out what comes next. It would be a shame if McCain's campaign did a better job feigning respect than Obama's did actually showing it.

Clinton has every right to continue, of course. But she has to realize the results in Indiana and North Carolina significantly dimmed her hopes for the nomination. She had gained some momentum in the last month, she lost it Tuesday night, and she has almost no time to get it back. Her losses Tuesday hurt because they almost crushed her last argument to the superdelegates (whose support both she and Obama need in order to win): that voters don't know enough about Obama, and as they get to know him, their doubts grow. Big wins in Ohio and Pennsylvania, combined with the resurgence of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, gave some credibility to that argument; voters in Indiana and North Carolina, two very different states, had a chance to validate Clinton's claim. A blowout in Indiana, combined with an upset or only a narrow loss in North Carolina, might have confirmed that the party would have buyer's remorse if it nominated the talented newcomer who racked up his delegate lead early.

Instead Clinton barely pulled out Indiana, and lost badly in North Carolina. Polls showed Wright mattered, but not enough to topple Obama, and the notion that superdelegates will, or should, overturn the will of voters became more far-fetched. Assuming the remaining states play out the way they're expected to, a few wins for Clinton, a few for Obama, Obama will, and should, be the Democratic nominee.

It's fine with me if Clinton soldiers on, but I agree with some of her critics that it's important that she adjust the tone of her campaign, to focus on her strengths, not Obama's flaws. So far many superdelegates are respecting Clinton's decision to continue, and not coming out en masse demanding she quit the race. But the party's tolerance for her continued campaign will diminish if all she does is bloody the likely nominee. She should focus on her superior healthcare plan and on her specific policy prescriptions, but mute her negativity about Obama.

I talk more about this in my video for Current this week.

Everybody's going to have to be more careful in the next few months, in the way they talk about race, while also talking about it. A lot. I don't know how we figure that one out, but we have to. It's a fact that Barack Obama's getting more than 90 percent of the black vote in recent primaries. It's a fact that Hillary Clinton's getting at least 60 percent of the white vote in the same time frame. To unite the party behind the eventual nominee, who is almost certainly Obama, Democrats will have to talk about the motivations behind those numbers, the grievances, the affinities, the hopes, the dreams, and the biases. And most Democrats who've opened their mouths about it this week have done a bad job.

Let's start with Clinton, because she's the candidate, and the bar is highest for her. Most of the claims of Clinton race-baiting and dog-whistling have been unfair, in my opinion. But then, after all the debate about it, she says something like she said Thursday, which as Conason points out, might seem to have been scripted by George Wallace. I honestly don't think she was defining "hardworking Americans" as white, or signaling to whites who are uncomfortable with Obama for racial reasons that she's their candidate. She was trying to explain the context of Republicans since Richard Nixon grabbing this group, and how important it is to get some of them back (and I agree). But I also understand why some people heard her remarks differently.

The debate between Donna Brazile and Paul Begala I highlighted Tuesday night was also illuminating, and alarming. I like and admire Donna Brazile. We used to get fan mail from her, here at Salon, when we were virtually alone trying to strengthen the Democrats' spines during the Florida debacle that cost her candidate Al Gore the presidency. But even I winced when I heard her suggest on CNN Tuesday night that the party might be able to do without the support of white working-class voters and Latinos who've been skeptical of Obama, because Obama is bringing in new voters. Here's what she said:

"A new Democratic coalition is younger. It is more urban, as well as suburban, and we don't have to just rely on white blue-collar voters and Hispanics. We need to look at the Democratic Party, expand the party, expand the base and not throw out the baby with the bath water."

The fact is, I don't disagree with Brazile: I'm not sure she's right, but there are reasons to believe what she does. Obama has expanded the party's reach, which is wonderful. Still, she sounded ready to write off working-class whites and Latinos; it wasn't until I read the transcript that I noticed she said "just rely on white blue-collar voters and Hispanics." But she still sounds a bit like she's making excuses for the Obama campaign giving up on winning the hearts and minds of those voters, and that's unfortunate. I don't think she means it -- she's too smart to think there are going to be any electoral shortcuts for Democrats in November -- but that's how it sounded.

Likewise, Paul Begala made a mistake in seeming to dismiss Obama's coalition as "eggheads and African-Americans." As Brazile pointed out, Obama's work expanding the electorate, bringing in young voters and independents and galvanizing the black vote, means he shouldn't be written off as Barry Dukakis. But Begala is partly right, too. The Obama coalition as currently constituted is too narrow to win key swing states like Ohio and Florida, where early polls show Clinton beats McCain, but Obama loses to him. It's too early to trust that such polls can really tell us what will happen in November (and the same polls tell us Obama can carry other swing states like Wisconsin and Minnesota), but Begala is right that there is cause for Democratic concern.

The fact that experienced pundits who are also Democratic activists, like Begala and Brazile, got so down and dirty and raw on CNN Tuesday night shows how tough things are right now for the Democrats when it comes to race. Both have stood up to bitter challenges on live television; both can calibrate their language, both want to appeal to the entire Democratic universe -- every race, every income group, eggheads included. Both, in short, know better. And the fact that they didn't act and speak better shows just how raw feelings are. They were genuinely angry Tuesday night, and it was gripping television, but worrisome politics. Then Clinton stepped in the mess by lamenting Obama's lack of support among "hardworking" white voters.

The fact is, the Democrats need to hold onto both the Clinton and Obama electoral coalitions to reliably beat John McCain in November. Sure, it's fun for Democrats to fantasize about how wooden and hawkish McCain will look next to the dashing, inspiring Obama; how McCain's dumb comments about a 100-year occupation of Iraq and not knowing much about the economy will continue to haunt him. I've indulged in those fantasies myself. But check out McCain advisor Mark Salter's nasty hit on Obama from yesterday. Anyone thinking a McCain-Obama race is going to be more uplifting than Clinton-Obama, as Chris Matthews suggested to me on "Hardball" Wednesday, or in any way easier on Obama than this primary race, needs to wake up.

There is absolutely no debating the fact that to beat McCain, Obama will need to do better among the white, working-class voters who back Clinton. Again, I'm hearing Obama backers comfort themselves by saying no Democrat has won a majority of the white vote nationally since Lyndon Johnson in 1964, and that's sadly true. But while Obama may be able to afford losing the white vote nationally again, he needs to do better with white voters in key swing states. Over at Daily Kos, Susan G's assertion that Obama's doing just fine because he's likely to pull the same proportion of white voters as John Kerry did in 2004 is not terribly reassuring. With friends comparing his efforts to Kerry's losing campaign, Obama might not need enemies.

What's the answer? I hammered out this whole post, and I don't have one. I do believe this: Obama can't win without doing better among white-working class voters in key swing states; in the increasingly unlikely event Clinton is the nominee, she can't win unless she repairs her relationship with African American voters. So we need candor about race; we also need respect and courtesy. I'm hoping we get more of all of it in the weeks to come.

The transcript below doesn't capture what Brazile said to tick off Begala: She suggested Barack Obama might not need to worry so much about the white working-class and Latino voters that are going with Hillary Clinton, because behind Obama, the party is being remade by young voters, urban voters and suburban voters. About 15 minutes later, host Campbell Brown brought in Begala, and he went off on Brazile -- and she responded in kind. Republicans Alex Castellanos and Bill Bennett make cameos, but the action is all Brazile/Begala.

Begala: I love Donna and we go back 22 years. We've never been on different sides of an arguments in our entire lives. But if her point is that there's a new Democratic Party that somehow doesn't need or want white working-class people and Latinos, well count me out.

Brazile: Paul, baby, I did not say that.

Begala: We cannot win with egg heads and African-Americans. OK, that is the Dukakis Coalition, which carried ten states and gave us four years of the first George Bush. President Clinton -- reached across to get a whole lot of Republicans and Independents to come. I think Senator Obama and Senator Clinton both have that capacity. They both have a unique ability -- well it's not unique if they both have it. They both have a remarkable ability to reach out to those working-class white folks and Latinos. Senator Clinton has proven it; Barack has not yet, but he can. And I certainly hope he is not shutting the door on expanding the party.

Brown: OK. Let -- egg heads and African-Americans? That's the new coalition?

Brazile: First of all, Paul, you didn't hear me right. Maybe I should come and cook you something because you've got a little hearing problem. I was one of the first Democrats who were going to the white working-class neighborhoods, encouraging white Democrats not to forget their roots. I have drank more beers with "Joe Six Pack," "Jane Six Pack" and everybody else than most white Democrats that you're talking about.

In terms of Hispanics, you know Paul, I know the math. I know Colorado; I know Nevada; I know New Mexico. So that's not the issue. I'm saying that we need to not divide and polarize the Democratic Party as if the Democratic Party will rely simply on white, blue-collar male -- you insult every black blue-collar Democrat by saying that. So stop the divisions. Stop trying to split us into these groups, Paul, because you and I know both know we have been in more campaigns. We know how Democrats win and to simply suggest that Hillary's coalition is better than Obama's, Obama's is better than Hillary's -- no. We have a big party, Paul.

Begala: That's right.

Brazile: Just don't divide me and tell me I cannot stand in Hillary's camp because I'm black, and I can't stand in Obama's camp because I'm female. Because I'm both.

Begala: That's -- Donna --

Brazile: And I'm wealthy so I might go with McCain and sit with Bill Bennett, Paul.

Bennett: That's funny.

Brazile: Don't start with me, baby.

Begala: We're having a vigorous agreement then, Donna.

Brazile: A gentle --

Begala: Agreement then --

Brazile: Because we're not doing -- both --

Begala: My point is --

Brazile: Go ahead, Paul.

Begala: What worries me is this notion that somehow there's a -- and I hear this sometimes from some of my friends that are for Senator Obama -- that there is a new Democratic Party and we don't really need all those folks. And we're -- Donna is exactly right. The only way to win this in my party -- we're not the monochromatic Republican Party. In the Democratic Party, the only way we win is to stitch together white folks and African-Americans and Latinos and Asians. And that's what President Clinton did twice. That's how he won two national elections. And I'm --

Brazile: And Paul, I was there with you. I was there. It's our party, Paul. Don't say my party. It's our party. Because it's time that we bring the party back together, Paul.

Brown: But Donna, doesn't he have a point in that it is divided? He is going to have to reach into her coalition and bring some people over and she -- were she to get the nomination -- is going to have to reach into his and bring people over?

Brazile: When John McCain secured the Republican nomination, he had to do some homework and reaching out to the Bill Bennetts. If Barack Obama secures the Democratic nomination, he will have to reach out to blue collar, white voters and neutralize Senator Clinton's advantage on the economy but --

Brown: Why hasn't he been able do that yet?

Brazile: He has reached out and he's won -- do you think that Barack Obama would be leading in the pledged votes, the delegate votes, the money, if it was simply because somehow or another black people somehow or another became the majority? Barack Obama has won the hearts and the minds of white voters, as well as blacks and Hispanics. I think -- he has to continue to do his homework and that's what he showed today in North Carolina, he must prove that in the races to come.

Castellanos: He was a much broader reaching candidate when this process started. And now I think it's fair to ask: Would the people you that see in Barack Obama's life be the same people you see in his administration? Would you see Bill Ayers? Would there be people like Reverend Wright? The answer may be no, by the way.

Brazile: Alex now you -- that is so small, Alex. That's so small.

Castellanos: No, but I'm saying that whether -- the answer may be no. But the question is certainly out there for a lot of voters.

Brazile: Will he take us to war on a lie and see all of our troops die on a lie? And not ask for forgiveness? ... You all want to make a superficial conversation, not a real, substantive conversation. Let's make it about substance and not do this.

Brown: OK guys, you know what?

Brazile: That's beneath you, Alex. You know better.

Brown: All right, guys ... Hold on. I want to ask Donna something. I want to ask Donna something because you have been on these panels time and time again with us as an undecided voter, and you sound very much --

Brazile: I'm not undecided.

Brown: Uncommitted?

Brazile: I'm undeclared.

Brown: Undeclared. There you go...

Brazile: Words matter.

Brown: Words matter. It sounds very much to me tonight like you have made up your mind.

Brazile: No. It sounds like I am ready to unify my party. I'm ready to bring the party back together and I'm sick and tired of hearing people say "my party, my party." This is the Democratic Party. We have stood through thick and thin and I'm sick of the divisions. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying that this is about -- I think Hillary is a fabulous candidate and she is doing a remarkable job in the closing days of this campaign. But Barack Obama's also a great candidate and I respect John McCain's service.

Now what does that make me?

Brown: All right ... Paul was desperate to get a word in and I cut him off -- Paul?

Begala: Yes, I'm sorry to intrude with a fact. But Alex is raising something that I think is going to be a loser for his party. His party believes that they think that they can beat Barack Obama by attacking his former pastor, or some guy he used to live in the neighborhood with 30 years ago. I think it is all nonsense.

We have some empirical proof. In the Louisiana House race, it was last week, this is a district that has been solidly Republican for 34 years, that voted 55 percent for George W. Bush. This is not a swing district. And they went in there, the Republicans did, and they ran ads attacking Barack Obama and attacking Reverend Wright.

And you know what the Republicans did?

They lost.

So as a Democrat, I don't even support Barack in the primaries, but I would gladly support him in the general election. And if Alex thinks they can win this by attacking people other than Barack Obama, somebody he used to know, somebody he used to listen to preach, I think that's a loser strategy for the Republicans.

Brown: OK, guys. Hold on. To be continued. --

Stay tuned. We'll have full coverage of both races as the night goes on.

Digby thought about all of this first, and I'm grateful to her. I tried not to write about it, to say, "Digby did that, so I can do something else," but reading Digby, I lost my balance, clicked on Wolff and fell in a deep hole. And not a good one. If you want to stop and click on the Digby link, read a great writer, and then go about your day, I'd understand. But Wolff, a writer I sometimes like, pulled me in. For he has decided that despite "the conventional wisdom that the big issues in this campaign are race and gender," in fact "the more fundamental issue is a revulsion toward middle-aged white men." And I had to figure that out.

Truth upfront: I didn't, but I tried.

Wolff opens his piece asserting, "Politics is about sex," and insisting "we vote for or against sex lives." He goes on to talk about what he sees when he looks at the leading presidential candidates, and it's so predictable and familiar, I'm thinking Wolff should hook up with Maureen Dowd (except it sounds like she's too old for him). In fact Wolff's analysis has a lot in common with so many narratives about the Democrats we've heard before: There's just something wrong with them. When it comes to sex, the "consensus view" according to Wolff is that Hillary ain't getting any, which is why she's the candidate of "post-sexual women." Now, Barack is getting plenty, from his "oomphy" wife, Michelle. (Salon letter writers: This one's for you. Please have a field day with oomphy, because I don't know where to start.) Men, Wolff tells us, really like that about Barack. But they also know that if he acts up, "Michelle will whip his skinny ass." Ouch! Not surprisingly, in Wolff's as in Dowd's view, there isn't really a man's man -- read white, middle-aged alpha male -- in the Democratic race.

On the GOP side, after the randy skirt-chasers Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson were hounded to the sidelines, we have the elderly John McCain, who's nonetheless "still vital," Wolff assures us. We know that because he has a younger blond wife, plus the New York Times did him the favor of revealing his maybe-probably affair with an even younger blond lobbyist. And everybody thinks the Times is a liberal paper!

Wolff's story, of course, tells us more about his own sexual issues than anything about Clinton, Obama and McCain. It jumps off from the Eliot Spitzer scandal, in which the former New York governor disgraced himself and devastated his wife and daughters by failing to hide the time he spent with prostitutes. Wolff's point seems to be that late-middle-aged men are now afraid their desire to have sex with younger women who aren't their wives is coming in for new scrutiny and disapproval. It might even make it impossible for them to be president, unless they're Bill Clinton. And nothing about the race between "post-sexual" Hillary and lucky Barack with the oomphy wife who'll whup his ass if he gets out of line is terribly reassuring to them. Wolff decries "a consensus on sexual politics that is driven by women, striking in its asperity and lack of generosity." (Asperity: That sounds kind of dry and rough and sandpapery and unforgiving.) He goes on: "The corollary to the conventional wisdom that the big issues in this campaign are race and gender is that the more fundamental issue is a revulsion toward middle-aged white men."

Poor, poor Michael Wolff. That's a remarkable psychological projection, given the lack of generosity, even "revulsion," with which Wolff describes the shortcomings of middle-aged women, particularly Hillary Clinton, who's defined not by her sexual misdeeds but by her lack of them -- and by her husband's. And we're supposed to feel sorry for the middle-aged white men (not) in this picture? They're displaced not only by Clinton but by Obama, the black guy (in case you forgot), who Wolff keeps calling "young," as opposed to middle-aged, even though he's 46 and solidly middle-aged. Obama's doing just fine, for now, at least until his wife whups his sorry ass. And "vital" McCain's fantastic! So here's the score: The black guy? The old white guy? They're fine. Even the post-sexual middle-aged white lady is fine, propped up by her legions of post-sexual female supporters. Middle-aged white guys? Feel the revulsion!

Ick. According to Wolff, the plight of a white man in his 40s and 50s and 60s is all about deciding whether, when and how to be with a younger woman, and then how to cover it up, and meanwhile to figure out how badly it will hurt his marriage and career if/when it comes out. For his female counterpart, it's all about how to go gently into that post-sexual good night, and how bitter to be if you get a wake-up call like Silda Wall Spitzer did. (But maybe later, after you heal, you can run for president, and be embraced by other post-sexual women!) That women in Wolff's demographic are finding younger lovers in unprecedented numbers never seems to enter his thinking. (Does he know that? Do we want to tell him, or would that make him even more miserable?) That some men in his demographic might find ways to fight temptation because of obligations to family or career or themselves doesn't intrude, either.

I'm someone who has stated often that I'm happy with the eternal Democratic primary, let the best person win, it's building a 50-state Democratic organization and so on. Reading Wolff's piece, and its creepy objectification of both Clinton and Obama (he nominally favored the black guy over the woman, but he's a little concerned because he's held in check by that oomphy black chick), I felt my first real longing to be out of silly season, to have a nominee, to be able to stop these invidious comparisons between blacks and women, and to be able to help Michael Wolff see he's still got a great life, whatever his sexual choices.

It might be hard for him to run for president, though, because his article makes him sound a little bit ... bitter.

Clinton does indeed have ... fortitude. Hell, she has balls. Salon readers and I went round and round about this question almost a year and a half ago, before I even had a blog. At the end of the discussion I decided "Yes, women can have balls!" (especially Stephen Colbert's big, brass ones). Clinton did two ballsy things this week, one I admire, the other, not so much. Clinton's not-so-admirable brassy move was proposing a gas-tax holiday and then sticking with it, when even economists she respects, like the New York Times' Paul Krugman, produced evidence it won't work to depress prices, and it is counter to everything Clinton has said she believes about promoting energy conservation. That's gumption, I guess; Clinton is smart enough to know Krugman (and everybody else who's criticized her) is right about this. On this topic, though, Obama is far more courageous, for continuing to oppose the gas-tax holiday even though pandering to fed-up voters might help him politically. (Maybe what Clinton has is gall, in addition to balls.)

On the other hand, I admired Clinton enormously for the way she went up against Fox's Bill O'Reilly this week. I particularly enjoyed the second night, when she debated him about the best way to combat terror and illegal immigration. I continue to dislike her saber-rattling on Iran, but her answers on Pakistan and Afghanistan were excellent; at one point she had O'Reilly muttering, "I agree, I agree," and it sounded like "Uncle!" She was toughest about illegal immigration, telling him flatly "No" when he asked if she'd move against so-called sanctuary cities, and maintaining her poise even when he started yelling about a police officer killed by an illegal immigrant in Los Angeles. He raised his voice; she raised hers. When he said, "Americans don't like sanctuary cities," she countered, "They don't like demagogues, either."

I'm glad Obama and Clinton went on Fox this week: I always thought they risked looking a little cowardly by avoiding the conservative news network. Now the country knows that both Clinton and Obama have the fortitude to take on Roger Ailes and friends. They'll need it in November.

My video for Current this week looks at whether women can have "testicular fortitude."