This is an interesting slice of responses from mainstream Liberals and Dems.
About 6 or 7 years ago, when I was much less radicalized than I am today, I used to read Talking Points Memo for news and comment. As I moved further leftward, and I began to see the Democrats less as a flawed ally and much more of a political opponent, I stuck with TPM mainly to get a sense of orthodox opinion. Wading through the comments is a depressing venture, not just because there's no room to consider Obama as anything other than a weak liberal rather than a reasonably canny conservative, but also because of the extreme lack of imagination in thinking about alternatives. The question posed to the readers is whether or not Clinton would have been a better choice in 2008. That's the best that they can do. A couple of the comments at least recognize that Clinton would have more or less the same but then claim that the problem is the fact that the GOP is controlled by its far right-wing base - as though it's a point of pride that the Dems are not controlled by their leftmost base.
James