This piece in TAPPED really worries me:

A FINAL WORD ON HILLARY. For this round of the debate, at least. Let me begin with an anecdote. A bunch of us Tappers went for drinks the other day, and Hillary Clinton came up. It was a mixed crowd, but, reflecting the magazine's writing employees, mainly men. As the conversation turned to '08, a young woman spoke up softly. "I like Hillary," she said. Very quickly, several men raised their voices against her, expounding, at great length, on everything that was wrong with Hillary, and why she couldn't win, and why no one should support her. The young woman said nothing in reply, and, in fact, said nothing more for the remainder of the evening. But I'm not sure that her mind was changed.

I like Hillary too. If she is the nominee, I'll support her. I am not in love with her political instincts frankly. But I am not a big fan of Obama's instincts either. As for Edwards, his record on Iraq was probably the worst at the time of the vote on the war in 2002 AND through the 2004 primaries. But he got himself straight early in 2005. Frankly, Edwards seems the best POLITICIAN of the bunch. But being President is more than being the head politician. Heck, George Bush is a good politician too.

Why am I rambling here? Because I can understand how women like Garance, who wrote the piece I link to, get their radar up with all the Hillary hate. It does seem over the top. Sure, there are problems with Hillary Clinton, but so are there problems with Obama and Edwards. And it is clear that men are not as driven to discuss the flaws in the male candidates. Are they sexists? I doubt it, but the concern Garance expresses seems not unwarranted.

Bump and Update: The Edwards campaign is continuing. The cancer is back, minimally. She feels fine. Future treatment is medication and a less invasive form of chemo. Elizabeth looks and sounds great. Their optimism is inspiring. What grace under pressure.

Bump and Update: CBS reports John Edwards will suspend his campaign due to Elizabeth's relapse of cancer. CNN says the campaign denies it. We'll know any minute. [Update: Ben Smith of Politico apologizes and explains.]

*****

Original Post

Presidential hopeful John Edwards will hold a press conference today at noon ET.

More....

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards accompanied his wife, Elizabeth, who has been treated for breast cancer, on a doctor's visit Wednesday. His campaign said they would hold a news conference in their hometown Thursday to discuss her health.

Campaign officials refused to answer any questions about what the Edwardses learned at the doctor's appointment or how it might affect his candidacy. Edwards had cut short a trip to Iowa Tuesday night to be with his wife Wednesday but still attended a barbecue fundraiser later in the evening in their hometown of Chapel Hill, N.C.

On February 26, I wrote a post titled Fast Forward: 2008 . . . What have Dems Done To End the War in Iraq?, I said:

And now we come to some practical realities - the Congress can only end the Iraq Debacle by NOT FUNDING IT. It may scare some people to say those words - I think it is an unfounded fear as I have explained many times. But let me give them a political scenario that is scarier -- come 2008 -- when faced with the question "What did a Democratic Congress do to end the Iraq Debacle?", when the answer is nothing, what do you think the voters are going to say? Spineless Dems ALWAYS lose. Always.

Recent polling should send a shiver down the Dems' spine:

A new poll finds that the approval rating of the Dem-controlled Congress is on the skids among not just Republicans, but Democrats, too -- and the pollster speculates that the Dems failure to "do anything substantive" on Iraq could be the reason why.

Acknowledging it's risky to support medical marijuana in an election year in which he's running for President, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said yesterday, "So what if it's risky? It's the right thing to do."

Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, poised to sign a bill making New Mexico the 12th state to legalize medical marijuana, said Thursday he realizes his action could become an issue in the presidential race. "So what if it's risky? It's the right thing to do," said Richardson, one of the candidates in the crowded 2008 field. "What we're talking about is 160 people in deep pain. It only affects them." The legislation would create a program under which some patients — with a doctor's recommendation — could use marijuana provided by the state health department.

New Mexico lawmakers have approved the bill and Richardson will sign it into law within the next few weeks.

The Next Hurrah is on the Rudy Giuliani - Alan Placa relationship.

Placa and Giuliani became friends when they were 13-14, when they began High School, and remained close friends through College. Post college Placa went to the Seminary, and Giuliani off to Law School. After he was ordained, Placa went off to Law School too. Eventually he became a Monsignor in the Diocese of Rockville Center, Long Island NY, and as we know Giuliani went to DC to Reagan's DOJ. When Giuliani needed an Annulment of his first marriage, Placa did the job.

But Monsignor Placa got into considerable trouble in the late 1990's and early 2000 era, when he not only was accused of abuse of two minors, who could not sue him or the diocese because the five year statute of limitations was long past, but when the whole huge story broke, first in Boston, and then across the country, Monsignor Placa comes up in several parts of it. While serving on Long Island, he had developed a legal strategy for dealing with abuse complaints that involved having an "intervention team" that met with family members and the abused, without revealing that Placa was indeed the Diocese Lawyer on such matters. Placa took great pride that in cases that if litigated might cost the Diocese Millions, he could frequently manipulate the situation, and get out for a few thousand. Of course the Monsignor was flying a false flag -- he was not a spiritual counsel, he was the Bishop's Lawyer. He traveled the country teaching Bishops the technique -- apparently 200 cases where he was successful outside his own diocese.

Where is the national media on this? Sara at Next Hurrah says, "To read all the bloody details, what you do is google the two names, Alan Placa and Rudy Giuliani, and you can read about it for hours, should you have a taste for Priestly Pedophilia and the investigations of recent years thereof.

The media continues to analyze the effect of Rudy Giuliani's troubled personal life on his chances of getting the Republican nomination for President.

The radical right will never go for him.

Republican strategists say Giuliani's troubled family relationships are likely to hinder his standing among conservatives who already have questions about his positions on social issues. They say the estrangement could raise a question in voters' minds: If Giuliani can't keep his family together, how will he keep the country together?

In fact, Giuliani's support for abortion and gay rights, his backing of gun control measures and his very New Yorkness already had given conservatives pause about his candidacy. He has also marched in gay pride parades, dressed up in drag and lived temporarily with a gay couple and their Shih Tzu.

More...

Rudy Giuliani takes more heat, this time from the bipartisan New York firefighters union which blasts his "egregious" treatment of them after 9/11.

In a letter to its members Friday, the International Association of Fire Fighters, excoriated Giuliani for his November 2001 decision to cut back the number of firefighters searching the rubble of Ground Zero for the remains of some 300 fallen comrades.

The 280,000-member union accused him of carelessly expediting the cleanup process with a "scoop-and-dump" operation after the recovery of millions of dollars in gold, silver and other assets from the Bank of Nova Scotia that had been buried.

"Scoop and Dump" Rudy, it kind of has a ring to it, doesn't it?

In telling us that Rudy the megalamaniac should not be President, Jim Sleeper perpetuates the myth that Rudy was some kind of Super Mayor. Why must this myth persist? Sleeper writes:

He forced New York, that great capital of “root cause” explanations for every social problem, to get real about remedies that work, at least for now, in the world as we know it.

You see, before Rudy, New York was not "real about remedies that work." I have one question for Sleeper - what was Rudy's remedy for the public education system in New York City?

Sleeper is just making it up, perhaps to improve his "not a liberal" creds on the issue. He does his argument no favors.

One divorce, okay, maybe evangelicals would give a candidate a break. But three marriages? No way.

Richard Land, head of public policy for the Southern Baptist Convention, told The Associated Press that evangelicals believe the former New York City mayor showed a lack of character during his divorce from his second wife, television personality Donna Hanover.

"I mean, this is divorce on steroids," Land said. "To publicly humiliate your wife in that way, and your children. That's rough. I think that's going to be an awfully hard sell, even if he weren't pro-choice and pro-gun control."

Politicans have to choose their words carefully these days. Check out the latest critism of Barack Obama's Selma, Al. speech yesterday where he credited the 1965 marchers with empowering his black father and white mother to marry.

Turns out he was born in 1961.

....he credited the "Bloody Sunday" civil rights marchers of 1965 with the fact that his parents -- a black African father and white Kansas mother -- were empowered to fall in love and got married.

"They looked at each other and they decided, 'We know that in the world, as it has been, it might not be possible for us to get together and have a child, but something is stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Ala., because some folks are willing to march across the bridge.' And so they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Ala.!"

Obama was born in 1961; the Selma march was four years later. Obama said later that he meant to credit the entire civil rights movement with his parents' union, not just the Bloody Sunday marchers.

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Via Ben at Politico Blog, quoting the Washington Times about Rudy Giuliani's Cpac speech:

In interviews afterward, some attendees said Mr. Giuliani lost momentum when he heaped lavish praise on Abraham Lincoln.

"While many conservatives regard the Civil War president as the spiritual founder of the Republican Party, others deeply resent him as a man who ruthlessly suspended constitutional rights and freedoms in order to militarily challenge the South's belief in its right to secede. Some saw similar disdain for individuals' rights in Mr. Giuliani's successful war on crime in New York City."

Where is Rudy on civil liberties issues? Squarely with Bush (no suprise there.)

Mr. Giuliani took the side of the Bush administration on an issue that troubles civil libertarian conservatives, saying that "you need the tools like the Patriot Act and legal intelligence surveillance."

Update 3/4: "Rove 2", Dick Wadhams, was unanimously elected to lead the state's Republican party.

Presidential advisor and Republican strategist Karl Rove was in Colorado yesterday, urging Republians to choose Dick Wadhams as chairman of the Colorado Republican Party. Here's what he had to say about the Republican loss in 2006:

During a "repaint the state red dinner," Rove said Republicans suffered a significant defeat in the November elections, but he said he takes a longer view of history and predicted voters will again turn to Republicans for leadership.

"We had a defeat. Can't dress up that pig. We pick ourselves up off the mat, we stand on principle and we get back in the fight," he told a cheering crowd of hundreds of supporters.

Wadhams took some lumps last year when he couldn't save his Virginia senatorial candidate George Allen from self-destruction: