'The Sorrow and the Pity Party'

I hadn't seen this post from James Wolcott. (Read the whole thing.)

Look, I understand the knocks against Hillary Clinton, truly I do. There are no flaming arrows fired her way that I haven't seen traverse the air before, no bill of indictment drawn up containing charges with which I'm unfamiliar. Reciting her sins and liabilities has become a familiar refrain, but if it's the Gregorian chant you live by, if you find Hillary Clinton such an insupportable choice for the Democratic nomination that you prefer to suckle your pride and idealism rather than soil your conscience should she be at the top of the ticket, fine, have fun with that. But, please, I beg of thee, could you at least spare the rest of us your longwinded, preeny, pious dirges?

I have, in sorrow, come to the conclusion that should Hillary Clinton be the Democratic nominee, I will not cast a vote for president. I live in Virginia, which she has no realistic chance of carrying, so perhaps it takes little courage for me to make that decision, should it be necessary. But given that I am politically active, that I teach government to adolescents, that I encourage them to participate, it is truly in sorrow that I find I must make this decision.

I will try to explain, if you care to keep reading, why I have made this decision.

Explain, the Kos Diarist proceeds to do, for numerous earnest, soul-searching paragraphs.

This is personal statement. No one else has read it. My wife is out of town, and will neither read nor recommend it. Were she to read it, she might disagree on some details, but she is so angry at the Clinton campaign right now that she might well append comments with language and expressions far stronger than those I am using.

And I realize that in posting this I may sunder some friendships. There will be those who accuse me of various transgressions.

I have to live with my conscience. For months I have at times sought to put the best case on things that bothered others. No longer.

Let me be blunt. As I look at the campaign run by Hillary Clinton, not just the words and actions of her surrogates and employees, but her own words and actions, I have regrettably come to the conclusion that based on that campaign, and in light of that campaign her record as a Senator, that she is morally unfit to be President of the United States. Thus I cannot and will not support her, should she achieve the nomination of the Democratic party.

Because, IN SORROW, I have come to this conclusion, for the duration of this election season I am likely to write about things others than the presidential contest, I will not be completely silent. I will comment on stories and diaries by others. I will devote my own efforts to things like house and senate races, or policy matters like education.

IN SORROW. At some point I may have to explain to my students why I have made this decision. At least two of my current students read all of my diaries, and are likely to ask me about it in class. I will be challenged on the apparent contradiction between this decision and my pointing out to them that if one does not participate in a political contest then one acquiesces in the outcome. It is a sign of my sorrow that I being to see on too many things that matter to me insufficient difference between Hillary Clinton and John McCain to be able to justify voting for one or against the other.

Lawd, you'd think it was Judgment at Nuremberg, with all this lofty, Oscar-caliber emoting. The Kos Diarist is hardly alone in the tender feeding of personal grief and regret. Consider this pair of melancholy babies from Andrew Sullivan's blog . . . .