The Reaction: She was the one she was waiting for!

By J. Thomas Duffy

It occurred to me, after our post last evening ("Back, and to the Left ... Back, and to the Left") -- the implosion of Hillary Clinton, the incredible irony of it all.

By her own, twisted, dark, logic/strategy, in context to her decision to stay in the primary race (a race she has been losing since Super Tuesday, and, just this past week, it became all-but-officially lost), related to waiting around for "something to happen" to/with Barack Obama, she reached into that rather large Clintonean Bag of Tricks, and brought up the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

As it has played out, universal condemnation has followed, and, to borrow from the Obama Campaign:

She Was The One She Was Waiting For!

How incredibly ironic...

Amazing self-destruction, from the person who was, self-admitted, ready on Day One...

The shoddy, lazy, error-filled campaign Hillary conducted will be buried, a number of paragraphs down, when the history of this primary season is written.

We already posted the "Nixon In A Pantsuit" thing, so, if, in time, she does recover, it will be written as a "Nixonian" rise back into the game.

If Hillary was looking to take off the front pages her screaming banshee -- "Give Me Michigan and Florida, or Give Me Death" -- well, she sure achieved that goal.

If Hillary was looking to prime the Rules Committee, before the meeting next week, whipping her supporters into a frenzy... Er, not very likely she achieved that one (though, we can't rule out that she will use this self-inflicted wound to beat the "Everyone's picking on me" drum - again).

No, in a big-bowed basket of irony, Hillary, inserting foot firmly in mouth, ended up to be the "something happening", and "the reason to wait around".

She Was The One She Was Waiting For!

**********

From the territory and borders around Hillaryland

Karen Timulty of Time points out that this has been a pattern of Hillary's going back to March:

TIME: Can you envision a point at which--if the race stays this close--Democratic Party elders would step in and say, "This is now hurting the party and whoever will be the nominee in the fall"?

CLINTON: No, I really can't. I think people have short memories. Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A. My husband didn't wrap up the nomination in 1992 until June. Having a primary contest go through June is nothing particularly unusual.

Trex has an option for you:

Well, we could talk about how Hillary is now openly incorporating the possibility of an assassin’s bullet into her plans for this whole nomination deal until our heads explode.

Or we could watch this adorable video of a hedgehog eating a carrot.

From The Mahablog:

Clinton supporters are whining that people are picking on poor Hillary again, making a Big Deal out of an innocent remark. These are the same people who won’t let go of Obama’s “bitter” remark, which some argue was taken out of context. I say live by the gotcha, die (metaphorically speaking) by the gotcha.

Quoting the Rude One: “To Clinton’s campaign and its supporters, who have been holding out for some gaffe by Obama that would take him down: How’s that working out for ya?”

Andrew Sullivan:

She's been waiting for Obama to implode. Instead, she just has.

The Anonymous Liberal:

Hillary is very smart and has pretty good political instincts. She'd no doubt run a competent general election campaign. But I think Obama has demonstrated during this grueling one and half year primary campaign that he is every bit her equal when it comes to raw political skill, and his campaign has out-smarted and out-maneuvered hers at every step. When you combine that with Obama's far superior rhetorical gifts and fundraising potential, it's hard to see why people still think Clinton would be the more formidable general election candidate.

Oliver Willis:

Seriously, who says this sort of thing? Your average person doesn’t say it, let alone somebody running for president. Hillary Clinton didn’t lose this race because she was a victim of sexism. She lost this race because people are tired of her clawing for power and running over everything to do it.