Via Ace, who clearly has a stronger stomach than I am: he's watching the Dem convention. Presumably, you know—so I don't have to.

If Obama can't even bear to hear the Hillary delegate counts, how is he going to manage an actual Presidency? I mean, that job is hard. It's really a ball-buster.

Ace, again, having too much fun:

Breaking; Negotiations Between Hill and Obama Have "Ceased;" Obama Now Merely Telling Hillary What's Going to Happen

Possible Plan to Scrap Roll Call Entirely in Favor of Written Ballot (Which Woud Be Untelevised, and Perhaps Not Even at the Convention)

Alternate plan: Roll call begins tomorrow, but ends at 1:15. Then the call for unanimous acclimation of Obama.

Another plan: Each state reads its delegates' votes... but only Obama's numbers are mentioned. Hillary's delegate counts are omitted entirely. Thus, instead of saying "The Great State of Iowa casts (whatever) 44 votes for Hillary Clinton, and sixty-six votes for the next president of the United States, Barack Obama," they just say "Iowa casts sixty six votes for the next president of the United States, Barack Obama."

That's not how it traditionally works. At least I've always heard the vote-split way of announcing the delegate count.

On FoxNews now. Hill's Angels are getting pissed off.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Bear in mind, this genius Obama is further annoying Hillary's delegates in the interests of "uniting the party."

And, from Salon, whose Rebecca Traister seems skeptical about just how many hard-core PUMAs* there really are out there:

"There is such a fear of women coming into power, that when they protest, they are given more weight," said Marie Wilson, head of the White House Project, before speaking as part of the Unconventional Women's programming, acknowledging the likelihood of protest. "Just the fact of women saying they support their candidate and want to make their voices heard sounds more scary than it would be if it were guys. That's just part of backlash. But come on. When women gather around a water fountain, men get scared. People oughta just chill."

Wilson acknowledges that there will be residual tension at the convention. But she sees the discord as a positive thing, a perhaps painful step in the right direction. "Putting issues on the table" -- as opposed to keeping political frustrations pent up -- "is what is going to bring people together." Wilson believes that in the wake of Hillary's run, "we are in the middle of a revolution. Women are stepping up and taking power." She said her organization, which encourages women to seek elected office, has seen a 61 percent increase in participation in the past year.

A half-hour later, many of the same sentiments were echoed by a woman who sat behind me during Nancy Pelosi's presentation, which was taken over by Code Pink protesters. As the demonstrators shouted for peace, I heard a soft voice say, "Ask Pelosi why she asked Hillary to get out of the race." After the speech was over, I spoke to Pat, a 73-year-old retired teacher who declined to give her last name because her husband is a delegate.

"I'm not anxious to disrupt the convention," she said, adding that she plans to go to a pro-Hillary march on Tuesday, but that "if it gets rowdy, I'll step to the side. I consider that march a thank-you to Hillary for having not given up." Pat said she'll vote for Obama, but that she just wonders, after listening to Pelosi tell the crowd about how there should be more women seated around her at the White House table, "Why, why, why did she ask Clinton to leave the race? And why did she encourage superdelegates not to vote for her? That whole speech she just gave was about how women have to strive for power, but she used her own power to diminish and destroy Clinton's."

This was anger, no doubt about it. But it was reasonable, rational, thoughtful and politically sophisticated anger, not the "No-bama!" protests I would see later in the day. "The thing is," said Pat, "if Obama loses the election, don't think it won't be Hillary who's blamed." But, she said, she doesn't believe the convention will be badly disrupted by protest. "A roll call vote, that's traditional!" she said. "Dennis Kucinich got one, and Shirley Chisholm. I don't understand why it should be such a big deal."

Neither did Dana Kennedy, a 40-year-old Hillary delegate from Arizona who is one of the 300 signers of the petition to get the roll call vote for Hillary. "My hope is that in the first round of voting I get to vote for her, and in the second round, I will vote for Obama," said Kennedy. "A vote for Hillary is a vote for history and not against him."

*No, not a chick in her 30s who likes to date younger men, no matter what the Urban Dictionary would have you believe. A male or female who felt that the media were "in the can" for Obama, and feel distinctly cranky about it. The acronym stands for "Party Unity, My Ass."

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