This past week has been absolutely maddening. I love this blog and just had to check what your take on all this was: Thank God.

I was about to lose my mind with everyone turning benign comments from the Clintons and their supporters into "Racist attacks!"--a "pattern"--and combining it with a blatant double standard, in which Obama remained unscathed when he had his national co-chair, Jackson, unleash an ugly, racially charged attack against Clinton the day after NH as did a prominent supporter, Dyson, who made it clear that any criticism of Obama was "racial in subtext" and suggested that Clinton's voters were likely racist.

Note: the only exception on the Clinton side was Johnson, a supporter, but even he paled in comparison to Dyson. And no one seemed to criticize Obama's prior flirtations with baiting: D-Punjab or McClurkin. Clinton fired Shaheen; Obama has not fired anyone.

Again, thanks.

... today's ruthless, corrupt, valueless, and incompetent Republican Party, I am glad that the Obama and Clinton camps have sworn off the low blows. I do hope that holds.

It was pretty depressing in the wake of that truce, that Tim Russert started this week's debate with about thirty lame personality-centered and tempest-in-a-teapot questions before anything of substance was brought up.

And, lest we forget, there's a third "major" candidate whose message gets further drowned out by the sleazy cheap-shot stories.