[I have dear friends who will vehemently disagree with me about this. But so be it; I have to make a choice!]

Now that Edwards is out of the race I find myself, like VastLeft, surprised, even chagrined, to find myself endorsing Hillary. But there it is. I wish this could be something other than a rambling, impressionistic post, but heck: Maybe that's how we all make decisions anyhow.

My bottom line is this:

I feel that I know Hillary. For all her faults, I know her.

I want to entrust the very challenging future of our country to someone I know. Simple as that.

I don't feel that I know Obama, and the more I learn about him, the less I like.

[Welcome, Crooks & Liars readers!]

Why is it that Barack Obama’s rhetoric sounds so strangely familiar?

Oh, I remember. There was this charming young fellow from Arkansas – what was the name of that town? Anyway, he had this awfully nice idea, about a “third way” alternative to right-left partisanship. I wonder what became of him and that darling wife of his....

Wait, yes, it’s all coming back to me. She's pursued that third-way agenda herself, in the Senate and in a run for the presidency.

And so has the man from Honolulu/Indonesia/The South Side. (If this path doesn’t lead to the White House, it certainly qualifies him for one of those “New Sanfrankota” ads.)

So, which of our frontrunners do I prefer? To use the essential word of Obama’s generation: whatever.