President Rodham: I've puzzled over this a couple of times, Flyer, and I could never figure out why, aside from the Ferraro disaster in 1984, the Democrats -- the party of women and minorities, we're told -- is positively allergic to running them nationally. It's been widely noted, in addition, that Bush Jr.'s cabinet looks more like America than Clinton's cabinet that he promised would "look like America." Besides which, Clinton's big minority nod was to put Kimba Wood, er, Zoe Baird, uh, Janet Reno, or some broad (though he claimed to be looking for "the best-qualified individual") in the AG spot, but only as a beard for Webb Hubbell.

At any rate, it highlights how deep in thrall traditional "minorities" are to the Dems. They don't have to let them play, after all. What are they going to do, join the GOP?

That said, Hillary does have the personality problem, so the Kos-ian protestations may be partly honest (though I really suspect a lot of older, male, honky Dems are afraid minorities will take the party from them). Last month's Atlantic surveyed influential Democrats about the '08 election, and they generally agreed that long-term exposure to Hillary is going to turn off even some who "like" her. She might surge at first, like Howard Dean did in the '04 primaries, but then she'll start to grate on folks. Look for '08 to be another white male vs. white male contest.