Its too bad that these women don’t think that a black man getting the nomination is a wonder to celebrate.

The two sentiments are in no way incompatible. Humans are capable of feeling many emotions, sometimes seemingly inconsistent, at the same time.

Most decent people, most Clinton supporters, most Obama supporters, are concerned about both misogyny and racism. This results in mixed feelings that come from watching this year’s primary process.

You can be outraged by both the racism and the misogyny. You can be enraged that both polluted the political process as much as they did.

You can be pleased that Obama won the nomination, and has wide popularity, in spite of the racism.

You can be sorrowful that this year will not be the year when a woman wins the US presidency, and that this sign of equality for women is postponed.

You could, watching the process, know that many feminists have longed for the day when a woman would be president, and know that many people who care about racial equality have longed for the day when a black person would be president, and yourself have spent many years longing for both goals, and felt torn that only one of these two milestones could be met.

You could be pleased that every single citizen in the US had the opportunity to vote for a woman as a presidential candidate in the primary/caucus process.

You could be pleased to see that pretty much (excepting Florida and Michigan) every citizen in the US had an opportunity to vote for a black person as presidential candidate in the primary/caucus process.

You could be pleased to see that both inspired great enthusiasm from many, many people, all over the country – enthusiasm that would have been difficult to imagine a decade or two ago.

You could feel joy for the people who joined the civil rights movement in the 1950s-1960s, that so many have lived to see the day when a black person is a serious presidential candidate, and mourn that so many did not live to see this day.

You could feel sorrow for the people who joined the women’s rights movement in the 1960s-1970s, and for those in their 80s or 90s, born before women could even vote, who, because of the 4 year election cycle, might not live to see the dream of a woman as US President, and mourn for those who did not live to see that a woman became such a serious contender.

“Anyone can be president” is a standard trope about how equality functions in the US – yet we know that this hasn’t really been the case, for most of US history. Looking for the day when a black person would be president has been a dream of the civil rights movement, looking for the day when a woman would be president has been a dream of the women’s rights movement.

Many people have held both dreams close. Knowing that one, and only one, of those dreams could be met this year, and the other would be postponed for eight years, perhaps longer (assuming the Democratic candidate wins this year, and runs for reelection in four years) occasions both joy for meeting one and sorrow for postponing the other.

One needs to take time to both celebrate the victory and mourn the delay. Both emotions are real, and need to be processed and felt.

Equality, and equal rights, are things to be greedy about. We want both, for everyone, now. Until we have both, for everyone, there will be both joy, for victories on either front, and sorrow and postponed victories for either front.

Several points:
1) Lincoln is one of the very few presidents (along with FDR, Truman, etc) who truly had a greater cause than himself or his family, the man kept America whole, and with the Emancipation Proclamation did more for Freedom than virtually any American ever.

2) The state of mental healthcare at the time was such that criticizing Lincoln on these grounds smacks of trolling.

Just like if something horrible comes out now about Michelle Obama. Which there has been talk of for a few days. I consider that his fault for thrusting his family into the spotlight. It is very clear the man has no loyalty, he will drop anyone like a hot potato if they make him look back for second.

Well, I don’t know about anyone else, but I think that comment is incredibly sexist (and patronizing). It implies that Michelle Obama has no agency, no say in what goes on in her own marriage, and that Barack Obama’s run for the Presidency must inevitably mean that he shoved the decision down her throat, instead of that they just might possibly have an equal partnership, with a give and take between partners.

It’s also interesting that you seem to blame only Obama for “thrusting his family into the spotlight.” Unless you blame all politicians equally.

In which case, you must not ever vote.

Count me in as one of the mourning Clinton supporters who’s going to haul her kid off to the Inauguration in January when President Obama takes his first oath. Historic. I’ll probably bawl the whole way through it.

To be very clear – I meant bawl with joy.

It just made me sick to see all the “pundits” twist Hillary’s words, while being all atwitter about Obama. With all the “pundits” so breathless about Obama, and the vile way Hillary’s words were twisted, it became clear that the guys latched on to anyone who had a chance to beat Hillary. Her work, her record, were all ignored, even denied.

So you’re basing your decision about who to vote for in the presidential election not on the candidates themselves, not what the candidates said or did, not on the candidates’ actual stands, but on what people in the media said about them?

And you’re assuming that pundits in the media — people who have been shown over and over and over again to be dedicated to a conservative agenda — did all of this because they just can’t help loving Obama and not because they wanted to sow as much dissension between Democrats as possible?

I guess we should put Tim Russert and Tom Brokaw up for election since apparently what they think and feel about Barack Obama and John McCain is much more significant than what the actual candidates say and do.

I’m not going to tell you how you should or shouldn’t feel about Senator Clinton suspending her campaign, but you’re certainly being a terrible spokesperson for her cause.

I must have missed where I was supporting slavery. Not liking Lincoln is not a love of slavery. But there you go with the “if you don’t like Obama, Lincoln, whoever you must be racist” garbage.

Not liking Lincoln is one thing. Singling him out for something that was commonplace practice among nearly all political leaders of this period, including the Confederate leadership like you did here:

Lincoln sat idly by while his soldiers raped and tortured Southern women.

is the mark of too many Pro-Confederate sympathizers whose one-sided hatred of Lincoln and the Union in the name of “The Lost Cause” and non-Whites is such that they neglected their own leaders were worse in many regards. Slavery, atrocities against Union POWs, forcible kidnappings and enslavement of African-Americans in the North during and after the Battle of Gettysburg, etc.

By constructing that sentence quoted above the way you did by not including the disclaimer

The way I fault all politicians for putting their ambitions ahead of their family.

in that very sentence, you sure sound like the Pro-Confederate sympathizers I’ve encountered who want to demonize the Union while omitting the same/worse sins committed by the Confederacy during the war. This specious one-sided argument is one I’ve heard too many times from Southern Whites who seem to feel the only true history of that period are in fictional pollyannish portrayals of the Antebellum such as Gone With The Wind….though I have heard a few idiots argue that even that was too harsh a portrayal of that period and that African-American slaves were genuinely happy, almost never mistreated, and well treated by their White “masters”. Yeah…and I’ve got 200 Brooklyn Bridges to sell ya….

Lincoln, as with many other political leaders of his time were flawed and caused sufferings through the implementation/non-implementation of policies. He is, however, far from the only….or even the nearly worst one in this regard. The Confederate leadership won that prize hands down.