Political Flame Wars

Hillary Top Staff Being Reshuffled - TPM

It's not the article itself that I'm directing you to so much as the comments section. It is but a mere drop in the bucket of the bickering going on between the Obama crowd and the Clinton crowd. What I find so interesting about these near-flame wars is that they are, on average, started by the Clinton supporters. For this comment thread in particular it's terribly amusing that some Clinton supporters have accused TPM of acting as a surrogate Obama campaign site when Josh Marshall has already stated his preference for Sen. Clinton. It's a strange that these supporters seem to strike their loyalty more for Sen. Clinton than for their party. They even have subsumed a phrase from the right-wing blogs, turning 'Bush Derangement Syndrome' into 'Hillary Derangement Syndrome.' So for those who show even a sign of support for Sen. Obama they are labeled as having HDS or some kind of misogynistic attitude toward Sen. Clinton. Even Sen. Obama himself has noted this resistance in his latest speech at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner on Saturday, noting that he was labeled as nothing more than a 'hopemonger'. While I do support Sen. Obama I have struggled to maintain a proper level of rationality about the campaign, particularly when he speaks. His rhetoric is excellent but at the same time I have to remember that not all of his policies I agree with, or at the very least the way he would go about enacting them. Even so, I still believe he has a better chance at changing things that any other candidate in the field. But all that aside, the sentiments of Sen. Clinton's supporters as represented by their online voice is actually a little frightening. I find it similar to the way many Bush supporters have acted to any criticism of him. That's what I find frightening.