A futile follow-up to yesterday’s teeth-gnasher. He’s not claiming, as I have, that Hillary’s a better match-up for us in the general, although it’s safe to say he agrees. His argument is subtler: Because Obama is the liberal Messiah and thus the very incarnation of Absolute Moral Authority, he can only be safely attacked (and even then, not so safely) by someone with AMA of their own, i.e. a female Democrat. Compare, for example, Josh Marshall bending over backwards to urge caution in assuming the worst about Team Hillary’s racial politics to his moronic criticism of McCain for failing to control every last loose cannon on the right. Hillary, being among the Enlightened, has the benefit of a doubt not even the most mavericky conservative enjoys, so if someone’s going to bloody His Holiness it’ll have to be her. A toast, then, to a long and combative primary.