OK... deep breath.

I've been reading dKos for about five years.  I lurked -- because I honestly don't have that much to say -- until Barack Obama announced his candidacy in 2006.  I registered an account at that point because I was pretty sure I would eventually settle on him as a favorite (as I did a few months later), and having lived in Illinois I was familiar with his career and figured I'd probably want to chime in now and then.  Well, now I'm chiming in.

After one too many diary making a ridiculous, overblown attack on one of our candidates, I'm saddened by the course dKos has taken in the day or so prior to the NH primaries.  For political junkies like me (and you), today should be an exciting day of anticipation and amateur prognosticating; sort of an all-day bull session.  Instead, we're too often getting diaries saying that John Edwards is a sexist, Hillary Clinton is a racist, and Barack Obama is the darling of the Duncan Hunter set (etc., etc.)  The bitterness extends to comments sections as well.  So here's my bucket of cold water: nothing you say on the internet today will have a bit of effect on the New Hampshire primaries, so we might as well be civil.  The campaigns are wrapped up there (other than GOTV, which Hillary/Edwards/Obama-bashing won't help), and the voting has started.  Let's get that into our heads and stop playing out the primary season psychodrama on a blog.  There's already been enough of it on the trail.

Short and sweet -- I'm on a laptop at a debate-watching gathering and don't have a transcript in front of me yet (does anybody? that'd be great), so forgive my lack of quotes.

Clinton, Obama, and Edwards were each thrown a fastball, right down the middle, on the same question.  And each of them swung and missed.  Details on the flip.

Short and sweet: Jim Webb, who is adored around here (and should be), doesn't support most of the out-of-Iraq methods that are bandied around this site.  Notably, this article on HuffPo quotes him criticizing the logic of timetables for withdrawal.  Quotes below.