I didn't vote for Senator Clinton in the Florida "primary" (I knew it didn't count, but I put my vote in for Obama), but I have no particular resentment against her; if she sometimes seemed a little uncomfortable and forced, you try going out and giving a stump speech again and again and not sound a little rote after while. As for staying in the race, well, that's her business. (the non-concession speech was a bit delusional and graceless, but the woman had spent almost two years of her life chasing the goal--you might not be at your best, either). And she said things that I not only found deeply distasteful, but sometimes downright puzzling. And not just Senator Clinton, but her husband. I agree that to run for the highest office, you have to be an egomaniac and an obsessive, but these two broke new territory. Still if she had won the primary, I would have voted for her. I suspect that she still had more political experience behind her than John Kennedy did when he entered the Presidency. And she has never seemed anything but smart and competent.

I'm not so sure that the reaction of the male press was so much sexism as, well, personal dislike in some cases, or at least a dislike of her rather stiff public persona (Chris Matthews remarked, in a puzzled voice, about the gap between her private charm and her public reserve, something that's been said by lots of people about the senator, friend and foe). And stiff or not, she's still more likable than her present attacker.

Hitchens, on the other hand, IS a misogynist, of the classic English sort (wants women sexually, doesn't have a clue how to relate to them socially, should probably confine their attentions to a blow-up sex doll). Even if Clinton had never complained about media sexism or pursued a Souther Strategy, Hitchens would have hated her. Hated her for having opinions, for wielding some authority, for not being, you know, a guy (a sour, angry, immature, burnt-out English guy).