One hell of a catch by Josh Marshall:
The right-wing billionaire sitting next to Hillary is Richard Mellon Scaife. During the 1990s, he poured millions of dollars into promoting insane anti-Clinton smears, including the rumor that Hillary had Vince Foster murdered as part of a Whitewater cover-up. In the picture, Hillary is granting an interview to him and the rest of his newspaper's editorial board -- an interview in which she claimed that Obama's response to the Jeremiah Wright controversy showed that he's soft on hate speech.
I wasn't even a teenager when Bill Clinton took office, but it's with his election that I became intensely interested in politics. When the local paper put up a two-page spread on his cabinet, I put it up on my bedroom wall as a poster. I identified with Bill and Hillary and hated their most vicious foes. That's the kind of thing that creates bonds between you and a politician -- bonds that Hillary Clinton's campaign is drawing on today. Even though I supported Edwards and now Obama, I had some affection for the idea of running Hillary down her enemies' throats. They deserve no less. Edwards and Obama offer the possibility of greater political gains, but I liked the idea of strengthening the old bonds and winning the same old fight against the same old enemies behind the same old champion.
I look at this picture and I can feel those bonds dissolving. It's not a rational thing -- the formation and dissolution of bonds between you and a politician rarely is. I can perfectly well understand the political calculus that has her at that table, and I'll still vote for her (by which I mean, against John McCain) if by some dark miracle she gets the nomination. But when I look at this picture, it just feels like something is ending.
