So I was sitting today in a room full of trial lawyers somewhere in northeastern Pennsylvania, all of us waiting for a deposition to start.
....(I promise this is not a start of a joke)....
And we were all abuzz about the political spotlight now being aimed at the great state of Pennsylvania. Most in the room who spoke up were definitely Democrats, as are most trial lawyers, obviously.
There are four rows of tables facing another table where the Plaintiff/witness, court reporter and his attorney will be seated. I am at the back table with four other attorneys. No, this is not like school where we are sitting in the back to avoid being called on. We are sitting in the back because that is where the AC outlets are for our laptops.
The guy to my left, during the political discussion prior to the dep getting started, said "Never back a Clinton into a corner." I replied, "Yeah, if you do that, they do anything, including acting like a Republican." To which the guy to my right let out a "pffft." I look over to him (and in my mind I resist the urge to troll rate him, while at the same time wondering how I would actually troll rate someone in real life...yeah, this is how you know you spend too much time at Daily Kos...you think in Kossian terms) and say "You disagree?"
He says "All I know is that we don't need a compromising Democrat in the White House like Obama. He talks of putting Republicans in the cabinet. Screw that. Those people need to go to jail."
To which I say "You think Hillary is going to put them in jail? Hardly."
It was at that point that the Plaintiff arrived and our conversation ceased, except that later I noticed the same attorney to my left was visiting the same blogs I was, including Daily Kos and Americablog and TPM. So obviously this was someone well informed in politics and no doubt intelligent, what with being an attorney and all. (And this point you are probably protesting that it is not at all obvious that attorneys are intelligent, but trust me, this particular attorney is).
I got to thinking, admist our infighting here at Daily Kos and elsewhere, the fight extends beyond us. Hillary Clinton has her boosters, who support her honestly because they feel she is a partisan fighter and feel Obama is not. Barack Obama no doubt has his supporters who feel he is best suited to not only change our politics, but change to our nation, and feel Hillary Clinton cannot, and indeed may lose to McCain in the fall, which is the worst of all possible outcomes.
Others have written today about the need to end our infighting during these primary wars.
I disagree. The fight must continue.
But the tone of the fight must change.
It occurs to me that we here that support Obama cannot envision why any Democrat, yet alone a human being, could possibly support Hillary Clinton, especially in light of her, in my opinion, despicable tactics in the last few weeks. Thus we treat them with utmost contempt and scorn.
But people, indeed true Democrats, do in fact support her. If that was not case, she would not have won Texas and Ohio last night.
So continue the fight, but when you come across a comment from a Hillary supporter here, put yourself in the place I was this morning (where I contemplated how I would troll rate someone in real life, and then realized I couldn't).
Fight with facts.
Combat untruths.
Combat false smears.
But do it like you doing it in real life with the Hillary supporter sitting right next to you.
And if we do that, I think it will go a long way to reducing the acrimony around here.