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"How do you respond to a sociopath like this?"

Asks Andrew Sullivan about... Hillary Clinton. She's a sociopath now? Why?

She agreed that Michigan and Florida should be punished for moving up their primaries. Obama took his name off the ballot in deference to their agreement and the rules of the party. That he should now be punished for playing by the rules and she should be rewarded for skirting them is unconscionable.

She's insane because she's fighting for the nomination using whatever arguments are available? If it's such a bad argument, it will lose and that will be the end of it. Obama is making the arguments that work for him. To exaggerate the hatefulness of her arguments and the virtuousness of his is to be too caught up in your personal preference for one candidate over the other. Obama's taking his name off the Michigan ballot wasn't all about some sort of supreme respect for rules and agreements. If he'd thought he was going to do very well, wouldn't he have left his name on?

Here's part of the quote from Hillary that drove Sullivan up the wall:

Now, I?ve heard some say that counting Florida and Michigan would be changing the rules.

I say that not counting Florida and Michigan is changing a central governing rule of this country - that whenever we can understand the clear intent of the voters, their votes should be counted.

Ha ha. That's rich. She is using the buzz words from the 2000 Florida recount (in which each of the 2 candidates made the arguments that helped his cause and acted outraged that the other was making arguments which he'd have made himself if they would have served his end). Clinton drives the point home:

I remember very well back in 2000, there were those who argued that people's votes should be discounted over technicalities. For the people of Florida who voted in this primary, the notion of discounting their votes sounds way too much of the same.

This isn't insanity. It's litigation. Quite normal. If the rules help you, you insist on the importance of rules. If the rules hurt you, they are mere guidelines that must bend flexibly for the sake of justice.

Full post as published by Althouse on May 22, 2008 (boomark / email).