Hilary Rosen in HuffPost:

I am disappointed. As a long time Hillary Clinton supporter and more importantly, an admirer, I am sad that this historic effort has ended with such a narrow loss for her.

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I am also so very disappointed at how she has handled this last week.

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She had an opportunity to soar and unite. She had a chance to surprise her party and the nation after the day-long denials about expecting any concession and send Obama off on the campaign trail of the general election with the best possible platform. I wrote before how she had a chance for her “Al Gore moment.” And if she had done so, the whole country ALL would be talking today about how great she is and give her her due.

Instead she left her supporters empty, Obama’s angry, and party leaders trashing her. She said she was stepping back to think about her options. She is waiting to figure out how she would “use” her 18 million voters.

But not my vote. I will enthusiastically support Barack Obama’s campaign. Because I am not a bargaining chip. I am a Democrat.

Michael Tomasky writes in the Guardian about Clinton’s speech:

She held a rhetorical knife to Obama’s throat and said, in not so many words: I’m still calling some shots, buddy. You offer me the vice-presidency, or I walk away. But she has also forced Obama into a situation whereby if he chooses her now, he looks weak. So that’s the choice she is hoping to impose on the nominee: don’t choose me, and Bill and I will subtly work to see that you lose; choose me, and look like a weakling who can’t lead the party without the Clintons after all. Now that’s putting the interests of the party first, isn’t it?

This, to me, was the most telling line of Clinton’s speech last night:

And I want the nearly 18 million Americans who voted for me to be respected, to be heard, and no longer to be invisible.

This is what it’s always been about for her. Respect. She feels like she’s been wronged, and that those who voted for her have been wronged, merely because somebody else won.

A desire to be respected is a desire grounded in insecurity. But respect isn’t something other people can give you. It’s something you have to give yourself.

Apparently the contest for her hasn’t been about getting a Democrat into the White House. It’s been about respect. She’s decided to ruin the party over… hurt feelings.

But feeding the fire of the people who didn’t vote for your party’s nominee, feeding their anger and insecurity, is really unprofessional, not to mention potentially destructive.

I will be making no decisions tonight.

How delusional are you? Don’t you get it? The decision is not yours to make. It’s already been made. You are not going to be the nominee. Your voters are not delegates that you control and can “release” to your opponent. They’re people with independent minds, and you can’t tell them what to do. And by the way — Obama already has the delegates. That’s what last night was about, in case you missed it.

Obama does not need to appoint you as his running mate, or promise to do anything for you. He’s the nominee. There’s no such thing as a co-presidency. The framers of the constitution thought about an executive council, but they decided to invest the executive power in a single individual.

The only choices you do have are whether to campaign for Obama, which, if you truly care about the issues more than you care about yourself, you will do enthusiastically; or to make an independent run, hoping to throw the election into the House and destroying the Democratic Party in the process.

But stop laboring under the delusion that you have any power left in this situation.

It’s not about you, Hillary. If you truly have any self-respect, you’ll realize this.