OK. I don't get it. I admit that right up front. Even after asking people all over the Internet to explain it to me, even after reviewing the appropriate law, even after hearing the emotional justifications, I just can not make this make sense. Will somebody please explain this to me?

As early as last Tuesday, talking heads were saying that if she couldn't be VP, Hillary's last remaining non-negotiable demand, in exchange for not continuing her rules committee fights all the way to the Denver convention, was that the Obama campaign officially or unofficially help her pay off her campaign's debt. I dismissed this idea as silliness. Then Friday afternoon, Senator Clinton, who could after all talk to Senator Obama any time she wants (they do work together) insisted that they covertly sneak away to meet in an undisclosed location for an hour. At the end of the hour, both campaigns admitted, off the record, that there was a deal. And sure as heck, on Saturday (44 minutes late, and as ungraciously as ever) she did give what could, if you're broad-minded enough, be argued to be called a concession speech that endorsed Barack Obama. You had to listen carefully for it, because it was sandwiched in between a whole heck of a lot of talk about Hillary's campaign, and Hillary's causes, and how important Hillary Clinton is ... you know, her favorite topic. But she did say to her people, "vote for Barack Obama." And what do you know ... in less than an hour, surrogates for the Obama campaign were all over the Internet, including the obama_2008 LiveJournal community, begging for people to donate money to Hillary Clinton's 2008 Presidential campaign.

When pressed, they clarify (quietly) that what they're really hoping is that only the people who legally can't give any more money to the Obama campaign donate to her; they quietly admit that they don't exactly want people to max themselves out helping her rather than doing the smart thing, funding the campaign that could, you know, actually still win. But that's not the appeal that went out; the appeal that went out was for anybody who supports Barack Obama to send whatever they can afford to Hillary Clinton 2008 in order to help them pay off their estimated $30.4 million debt.

I've heard this explained as a gesture for "party unity." And was it a gesture of "party unity" when she took out those loans in order to pay for attack ads on the (by the time she was taking out those loans, already statistically inevitable) party candidate? Nobody made her take out those loans, nor is it as if she used that money for anything that was in any way good for the Democratic Party, or like anybody in the Democratic Party was even asking her to do so.

What's more, who exactly is this gesture supposed to impress? She's already asked the people who were as committed to the Democratic Party as they were to her to vote for Obama in November and to campaign as hard for him as they would have for her. Yes, I know that a lot of bitter (and so far as I can tell from seeing them on YouTube, virulently racist) old Boomer and Silent generation white women don't want to do that, but are they going to magically learn to love Obama just because his followers gave Hillary some money? I don't think so. A ridiculously expensive $30+ million "display of party unity" is wasted on them; they don't want money, they don't want gestures of respect, they want a bullet through that "inadequate black male" head.

We're also told that Clinton's own donors are tapped-out, at the federal donation limit, and that if she can't raise the $30.4 million by the time of the Democratic National Convention, she becomes responsible for the loan and the whole amount becomes a donation to her own campaign. To which I reply, so? That's as legal as church on Sunday. There is no federal campaign spending limit on what you can spend of your own money. And here's the real kicker for me: so what if she has to pay her vendors out of pocket? The Clintons are rich. They've averaged $13,502,364 a year in income since Bill Clinton left office, and have an estimated net worth of roughly $35 million dollars. How much of a tragedy would it really be to ask them to get by on "only" five million dollars until one of them gets another book contract or Bill Clinton gives another speaking tour?

For crying out loud. What could possibly justify asking guys like me who make less than $20,000 per year, living on fixed income in a Section 8 housing complex, to donate money so that a multi-millionairess doesn't have to get by on "only" her last five million dollars? Please, somebody, for the love of all that's holy and good, explain this to me?