Categorical Aperitif

Atrios asks a good question. It is astounding that Matthew "Man in the Middle" Dowd could write a 644-word "attempt at explaining" Hillary Clinton's loss to Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential nomination contest without mentioning the Iraq debacle. Alas that his grasp of the apostrophe is also tenuous:

3. Presidential campaigns are always about understanding voters fears, but then asking them to vote their hopes. Clinton did an unbelievable job speaking to voters fears but she never crossed the bridge to speak to voters hopes. She got stuck in the fear equation and voters needed her to move to hope at some point.

Voters just means "more than one voter." Let's try that again, with proper punctuation this time:

3. Presidential campaigns are always about understanding voters' fears, but then asking them to vote their hopes. Clinton did an unbelievable job speaking to voters' fears but she never crossed the bridge to speak to voters' hopes. She got stuck in the fear equation and voters needed her to move to hope at some point.

There. Better. One might also add commas in the last two sentences—long independent clauses connected by coordinating conjunctions—but never mind. Who needs commas and apostrophes when your mind works at this profound level?

The country desired more of a father figure. Today, the country is looking for more a a healing presence, someone more nurturing and demonstrating an ability to bring the American family together -- more of a mothering persona. The country wanted a Mom, and Hillary gave them a Dad. She tried to hard to demonstrate her toughness and strength and voters wanted more caretaking and sensitivity.

Idiocy aside, Dowd avoids mentioning the war for yet another paragraph and manages to feminize Obama at the same time—nice. Trenchant analysis like this is why we all keep coming back to ABC News, huh?