Yes, she has taken opportunistic (and in my opinion, wrongheaded) positions on issues that matter to me, and I never planned to vote for her.

But I do think she’s smart, tough and determined, and would make a fine chief executive.

It’s her misfortune to be running against Obama –a candidate who can touch the hearts of voters in a way that Hillary just cannot.

And that’s her downfall.

As with most things in life, timing is everything.

Point blank, Clinton is not convincing enough as she presents herself. It’s like she’s playing to a script, saying what she thinks people want or need to hear, and half believing it herself.

Bill’s shadow looms large over everything Hillary does.

I’m not a Hillary supporter, and her persona has always turned me off, but I can’t see her display of emotion in that diner as weakness.

She’s been looking visibly strained by the rigors of the campaign trail, so it’s not surprising that the emotional fatigue might express itself with the tears allowed to women by our sexist society. It’s just another kind of sexism that denies those tears to men.

Macho Hispanic societies allow their political men to cry in public without losing face.

And besides, Bush is a phony ‘cowboy’– Vicente Fox says in his autobiography that Bush is a “windshield cowboy” who is afraid of horses. That swaggering ‘machismo’ of Bush’s is bogus– it’s really the baseless self-assurance of a rich kid who grew up accustomed to privilege.

Unfortunately, it’s the foot soldiers of our military who have to suffer being used by an emotionally stunted man who treats them as personal playthings he got for Christmas.

Also, it’s utter nonsense that we should shape our foreign policy according to what Muslim dictatorships think about the place of women.

To debase ourselves and our ideals by trying to appease medieval and backward-looking mullahs would be the worst display of weakness.

She didn’t “lose it” in the Saturday debate; she vigorously defended her record against Edwards’ innuendo. That showed me her passion and her fighting instinct. If a guy had fought back that way, he’d be praised. She should be too.

And her “meltdown” in the diner seemed to me to be a heartfelt moment where she displayed her emotions. She’s been battered from the start of this campaign, in large part because of her gender and that mysterious thing called Clinton hatred.

Again, I’m not a big fan of hers, but I have no problem with a show of honest emotion.

Other countries have had female heads of state and would not have a problem if we elected one.

But with the world situation as unstable as it is, and the stereotype of “females being weak,”
it’s AMERICAN VOTERS who couldn’t accept a woman president.

At least not THIS woman at THIS time.

Concentrating on how idiotic Bush may be doesn’t pale the gender issue at hand.

Which is worse, electing a female or someone that can’t even locate Pakistan on a map?