You just couldn’t leave well enough alone….couldn’t you, Senator Clinton??

Running the most right-wing “populist” campaign in Democratic primary history wasn’t enough for you.

Pandering to the worst of the racist hardhats and hard core right-wing rednecks was bad enough.

Playing upon your female status and Bill’s former power in order to be annointed with the nomination just couldn’t cut it.

And even with all that not working, and you getting your sorry self blown out by an upstart rookie Black US Senator who simply had a better strategy and a better message than you…you just couldn’t take the hint and get out while you were behind.

Instead, you just took a brush fire….and promptly dropped a nuke on it.

OK…so  I might be willing to take your excuse and half-hearted “apology” that you were only quoting Robert Kennedy’s assassination as a chronological point to say that presidential campaigns can continue long into the summer.  Fine enough….except that RFK in 1968 was a late arrival in a truncated nominating process that didn’t even involve the kind of primary/caucus voting, or the long and winded political process of today. (Remember, Hubert Humphrey was nominated the old fashioned way, through backroom deals and appointed delegates; neither RFK or Gene McCarthy had much of a say over the ultimate process back then. Indeed, you could say that RFK’s run was designed to deflect attention to the success of McCarthy as the “anti-war candidate”.)

And no, Hilary, not even your husband’s “comeback” in 1992 counts either, since Bubba had already wrapped up the Dem nomination by as early as March, dispatching Paul Tsongas during the “Super Tuesday” sweeps; the only issue with the Cali primary was whether then Governor Jerry Brown would play the role as resident “populist” spoiler.

Funny, though, that Hillary is closer to  Jerry Brown in reality than she is to Bill; since she has basically no chance to win the nomination, unless she can somehow intimidate the majority of superdelegates and claim all of the disputed votes in Florida and Michigan as hers.

And that is the entire point of all this mess: a last gasp effort to smear Barack Obama as unelectable for no other reason because he happens to be a Black man (even if only half-Black), and because he got in the way of her coronation and anointment as “The Chosen One”. Pandering to the “working class White Americans” (as if Black folk aren’t quite “working class” enough); parroting right-wing “populist” memes like the “gas tax holiday” and secret fundamentalist group meetings; and never backing away one inch from her support of Bush’s wars….all of that is meant to do nothing more than to preserve her mighty ambition to follow her husband to the ultimate political prize.

And if she manages to so beat down Obama enough to hand the 2008 election to John McBush…..errrrrrrrrr, McCain….on a silver platter; all the better to set herself up as the modern day Joan of Arc which will rise from the swamp to save the Democratic Party in 2010 and 2012.

But that’s not even the worse of it….certainly Hillary Clinton is smart enough to know that Black folk are rightfully afraid of a genuine assassination threat to Obama or any other Black major political official who challenges the dominant political discourse; since it has happened far too often (remember Malcolm X; Martin Luther King, Fred Hampton, COINTELPRO???) OK, so Obama isn’t nearly as radical as these folk, but even the notion of having a person of color not to the right of Clarence Thomas or Alan Keyes even within shouting distance of the White House would be enough in some corners of our nation to give them some….you know, ideas?? Was she asleep when Mike Huckabee ran his “there goes that Barack, running for cover from the gunshots” attempted joke with the NRA Comedy Club earlier this week?? Is she even aware that Obama has been under Secret Service protection due to death threats from as early as March?? Because, if she did manage to think about that for, say, one second before opening her piehole and inserting her leg up to her thigh, the word “assassination” would not have even ventured from her lips.

But then again, if she had thought about that, then she would have seen the reality of her situation and conceded the nomination to Obama a long time ago when it was obvious that she wasn’t going to win.

Instead, she’ll have her lieutenants, Mark Penn and Terry MacAuliffe, paint down on her the rosy scenarios about how she is now ahead in the popular vote (yeah, right, if you exclude states with caucuses only rather than primaries, and throw in Florida and Michigan’s disputed votes all in her corner); how she should be anointed the nominee because “she wins in states Democrats need to win while Obama leads in states that have no chance to go Democrat at all” (but I thought that the idea all along that she would be the candidate to win the “swing states” which didn’t go Democratic at all??); and how she is at the very least deserving of the Vice Presidential slot as a “unifier” who will assuage women voters who don’t like how she has been “bitchified” and bashed (now, she does have a point there about the mass misogyny of some in the media towards her; but how that justifies her “scorched earth” campaign strategy remains subject to debate).

And, she will have her groupies and media wolfhounds (see Taylor Marsh and Susie Madrak, whom has degenerated so rapidly from a fighting progressive to become a simple yes-woman for Hillary) attack the messengers and spin her mistakes around to attempt more smears against Obama for being such an evil person to get in the way of her “historical” candidacy.

Do us all, and especially the Democratic Party, Hillary, a real favor.  Give it up; acknowledge you are beaten; give Barack Obama his well-earned victory..and then disappear for, like a year or five. The way you are going right now, you will be less electable than even he will….and you will drag the Dems down with you into the sewer hole. Considering how low Dubya and the Repubs are at this time, that would be a significant task…..even considering the regularity of Democrats for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Oh, and one other thing: this recent mauling of Keith Olbermann for his righteous and pithy recent Special Comments whacking Hillary for her dense remarks and for her entire strategy is a bit too much.  I find it quite funny that all the newly minted KO haters had no problem applauding him when he busted out the whupping sticks at Dubya and the Republicans for their crimes and scandals and war games…but let him raise his voice one decibel against Hillary’s tactics, and they become like…well, Fixed Noise agents. Sorry, but I didn’t know that he had to gain your approval for thinking for himself…any more than he has to gain BillO’s or Steve Doocy’s.

Doesn’t bother me any, anyway..since as of right now my vote’s still going for McKinney, and I still consider Obama to be a different kind of conservative Democratic opportunist panderer.  But Hillary still deserves all the razzing she gets for running such a horrid campaign….and using Black voters as a stepping stone for her blind personal ambition. Sounds familiar…doesn’t it??

The relevant video follows:

Sen. Hillary Clinton Addressing Argus Leader (SD)  Editorial Board (via YouTube; crossposted to Huffington Post)

Countdown with Keith Olbermann (MSNBC): 5-23-08 Special Comment on Hillary Clinton’s “Assassination” Gaffe (via YouTube)

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