In describing -- or dismissing -- Hillary Clinton’s "endgame" as "a fond wish wrapped in a desperate hope," The Politico's Roger Simon granted her a narrow opening and closed it at the same time.
His piece following Hillary's North Carolina and Indiana losses -- admit it, buckaroos, Indiana was a loss -- "Clinton desperate for super turnaround," was written in the present tense; so when he ventured that "she needs momentum, spin and fear" to transform the quixotic to realistic, I can only assume he foresaw that trio's remaining possibilities.
On the other hand, as he indulged all this foresight, he was drawing the curtain and mumbling last rites.It was the damnedest thing. And, with all due respect to Mr. Simon, whose veteran opinion I do indeed respect, it was damned typical of the way the media at large have failed, since February, to finally euthanize the mortally wounded Clinton campaign.
Part of that failure, no doubt, springs from John McCain's Lazaruslike return to the field after the media had stacked the last stone on his political grave. It was rather shabby of Mr. McCain to come bounding back, what with all the embarrassment it caused the print and network prophets of our time. One senses that after that startling turn of a worm, they said, No more, never again, from here on out we'll always insert a qualifier into each of our political prognostications -- no matter how much of an extraordinary outlier that qualifier may be.
Another part of the media's failure to declare the Clinton campaign's time of death has been, I think, a borderline-unconscious conspiracy to keep her public hopes on life support. Not all conspiracies come packaged in evil intent, you know -- and let's face it, notwithstanding the considerable angst that Clinton has caused her party internally, her neverending quest for ultimate power in 2009 has been just plain fun for all to watch.
Please, please don't let it end. 'Cause then we'll be stuck with covering McCain as the only opposition to the new politics of hope, a man whose mind, vision and originality are as arid as his home state. One shivers at the thought of five months of such grueling, grinding crap.
But wait. Hillary Clinton isn't complete toast yet, no matter what the New York Post bellows in largest of type. Yeah, that's right, recall the media. We always have Hillary, just as long as she has access to her joint checking account. Lordy lord, praise the loopholes in campaign finance reform, for unto the non-elitist filthy rich there is always the healthcare option of costly intervention and resuscitation.
This realization among the media isn't really a conspiracy in the conventional use of the word; that is, secretive mass huddling in dark, foggy alleys in which grand designs are hatched and then executed with tight, organizational and malevolent efficiency. It's more of a happy, great awakening that droppeth on media members individually and coextensively like the gentle rain. The result just looks organized.
So it was, I think, that Mr. Simon was merely operating under the oppressiveness of having blown McCain's nomination and the liberation of any number under 2025.
Sure, she still has a shot at this thing, although she doesn't -- and that is precisely what Simon and, by now, many, many others have written and, for reasons enumerated above, will persist in writing.
Let us return to that passage expressed in the present: "she needs momentum, spin and fear." Good enough. After which, however, Simon pretty much demolished all hope on each count.
Her momentum, he said, "was dealt a setback Tuesday night" -- a "setback" elsewhere deemed the equivalent of the effects of a neutron bomb. And yep, her "pretty predictable" upcoming victories in Kentucky, West Virginia and Puerto Rico will still leave Barack Obama with a bankable lock on pledged delegates. Try spinning that, in addition to downspinning Obama's equal number of upcoming victories in Oregon, Montana and South Dakota.
That leaves the fear card that Clinton operatives have been slapping on superdelegates; the dangled fear that Obama could still be full of unwelcome surprises. But, so could Hillary, conceded Simon, and the superdelegates know this as well.
Hence the long of it, the short of it, the up, down and lateral every which way of it is this: Hillary is indeed toast. Yet Simon insisted on wrapping his piece with, "if she doesn't get the nomination this time."
Well, Roger, if I don't win the state lottery today I'll be disappointed by tonight. Now, would you harbor any hesitation in predicting my mood?
Come on, Roger Simon & Media Friends. Be men about it. Just say it and be done with it: It is over. Official time of Hillary's political demise: midnight, May 6 -- and may her suspended campaign rest in peace.
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THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter
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The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
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