Was it really so awful, so devastating, so crippling to the cause that Bernie Sanders waited five weeks to endorse Hillary Clinton? If Sanders had capitulated right after the California primary, his supporters would have seen that as a shameful betrayal. Bernie “hung on”, quixotically, because he and his team wanted progressive Democratic platform concessions that probably wouldn’t have happened if he’d conceded in early June. You know the Clintons.

Does anyone except Sasha Stone seriously believe that Donald Trump might prevail in November? Hillary is naturally and unstoppably self-destructive, agreed, but there are no more threats hanging over her now. No more emails, no more Benghazis…nothing except the unfortunate fact that millions and millions of people don’t like her much.

“Secretary Clinton has won the Democratic nominating process, and I congratulate her for that,” Sanders said this morning. “She will be the Democratic nominee for president and I intend to do everything I can to make certain she will be the next president of the United States.

“I have come here today not to talk about the past but to focus on the future. That future will be shaped more by what happens on November 8th in voting booths across our nation than by any other event in the world. I have come here to make it as clear as possible as to why I am endorsing Hillary Clinton and why she must become our next president. Mainly because Donald Trump must not win. Please. Get real. Oh, right…the yokels out there have a different idea of what that means.

“Am I concerned that Secretary Clinton isn’t Elizabeth Warren? That she’s not really on the Sanders-Warren revolution team? That she’s more of a practical minded center-right Atlanticist than a real lefty? Am I concerned that Susan Sarandon is contemplating driving off the Grand Canyon as we speak? Does the fact that Hillary has been nurturing all of those cozy, amicable relationships with Wall Street billionaires give me a moment of pause? Of course it does. Of course I am.

“Am I therefore really and truly ‘endorsing’ her? Well, yes…after a fashion. What else can I do? Trump cannot win. I can’t do anything but fight that awful possibility tooth and nail. Trump occupying the Oval Office would be a disaster of horrendous proportions.

“Do I regret that Secretary Clinton has so far refused to touch up those eye bags, which is a very easy process and not very time-consuming…a week at most? Yes, I do regret that somewhat. It would make a world of difference if she would just accept reality — the reality being that eye bags are unattractive as fuck — and have the work done already. Do I regret that Secretary Clinton is somewhat heavier and jowlier than she was during the ’08 campaign, and way heavier than she was in the early aughts? I’m not going to say anything about that. We all have personal issues to attend to, myself included. But the eye bags are definitely fixable. And while she’s at it, she could touch up the jowls and the neck wattle.”