Hillary attacks media sexism as reason for her difficulties.

In an interview after church services in Bowling Green on Sunday, Clinton for the first time addressed what women have been talking about for months, what she refers to as the "sexist" treatment she has endured at the hands of the pundits, media and others. The lewd T-shirts. The man who shouted "Iron my shirt" at a campaign event. The references to her cleavage and her cackle.

Later, when asked if she thinks this campaign has been racist, she says she does not. And she circles back to the sexism. "The manifestation of some of the sexism that has gone on in this campaign is somehow more respectable, or at least more accepted, and . . . there should be equal rejection of the sexism and the racism when it raises its ugly head," she said. "It does seem as though the press at least is not as bothered by the incredible vitriol that has been engendered by the comments by people who are nothing but misogynists."

This argument is clearly a straw man with very little validity.

The real truth is that if Hillary were not named "Clinton", and she was not a woman, she would have been out of the race a long time ago.

Let's talk about the reality of why Hillary has lost this nomination.

It all started in October 2002 when Hillary voted to allow Bush to use the military against Saddam Hussein. It is easy to understand what her thinking was on the subject, but that does not excuse her vote.

You see Hillary recognized that one of the major knocks against women being President is that they will not be strong enough to stand up against our enemies. So in order to put that to rest Hillary felt she had to join the other Democrats that supported Bush's aggressive tactics against Iraq.

And then later when it became clear that voting that way had given Bush the power to make one of the biggest military blunders in history Hillary, unlike John Edwards, felt that she could not now show weakness by apologizing or expressing regret for that vote. So she did neither.

Hillary kept up that same theme of the aggressive "take no prisoners" fighter as she campaigned across the country. It did completely put to rest the idea that she was too soft to stand up to our potential foes in the world but it also made her look hard and, let's face it, bitchy. After all looking bitchy is one of the common side effects for a woman trying to project a more masculine persona.

But this still might have worked for her, if not for one thing. Barack Obama.

Barack presented a candidate with a whole different prejudice to do battle with. Barack needed to demonstrate intelligence and compassion and articulation. And he did all three amazingly well.

To be honest the idea that this newly minted Senator with the Middle Eastern sounding name could have any chance against the Clinton political machine would have seemed crazy a year or two ago. Which is one of the most compelling parts of his campaign.


And when Hillary's campaign started using subliminal racial slurs and "Rovian" strategies in an increasingly desperate bid to stop Obama's momentum, it just served to define the worst qualities of the Clinton political machine. And in the end this simply served to show the voters that Barack Obama really was a very different, very unique candidate. He was not like George Bush, or Bill Clinton, or even Hillary Clinton, he was an entirely new political entity. And that gives us hope that he may hold the secret to saving us from the damage the Bush administration has done to this country.

Yes there are people who still will not vote for Hillary because she is a woman. There are also those who will not vote for Obama because he is black.

There some who will not vote for another "Clinton". And those who could never vote for anybody who's middle name is "Hussein".

There are those who will not vote for Hillary because she did not divorce her husband after his very public affair. And those who will not vote for Obama because they are convinced he is secretly a Muslim.

So we can find any number of prejudices to support the sense that our candidate is not getting a fair shot. But perhaps it is less important to point out what deficits they bring with them then it is to point out the positives that let them rise above those deficits to be one of the two last Democratic candidates still in the race to win the Democratic nomination to be President of the United States.

In truth I think that the amount of sexism toward Hillary and the amount of racism toward Barack cancel each other out. Which really does allow us to choose one of these candidates on their merits alone.

So putting those divisive issues behind you who do your choose to lead this country for the next four, or hopefully, eight years?