When Dems Attack...

Their Own

"At last week's debate in Cleveland, with Obama sailing after 11 straight victories, Russert and Williams were still noticeably tougher on Clinton, even as she flailed against the new front-runner.

Clinton weakly complained about getting asked questions first and the deference showed Obama. Whining never becomes a presidential candidate, even if she's right. She senses what's obvious - that many journalists have discovered their latent Clinton hatred because they've finally realized the presumption and sense of entitlement of the Clintons, or have found their low-ball tactics repellant (sic), or simply don't like her when they have an alternative candidate who's so bright, shiny and new.

Veteran Newsweek writer Jonathan Alter captured the spirit in a column calling on her to drop out before Texas and Ohio. She could "go down classy, with a real chance of redemption." Nothing would so suit her, in other words, like being out of the way.

He's cool; she's clunky. He's a natural; she's workmanlike. He's the hot, fresh thing; she's been "fighting for change" for 35 very long years.

For all that, Clinton is a serious person afflicted, as she put it once, with "a responsibility gene." Politicians rightly earn our scorn, but their most admirable quality is to keep going when they are contemned and condescended to, when all the great and good turn their backs.

It's a sign of her diminishment that all Clinton has left are the voters, especially those unglamorous voters who aren't young or rich or independent, but working-class Democrats without the time or inclination to stand so long at Obama rallies that they faint in the middle of his speeches.

If Clinton hangs on in Texas or Ohio, it will be because they doubted whether a novice senator who burst onto the national scene the day before yesterday has the experience to be commander in chief and found that she spoke more convincingly to their economic anxieties.

Even if Clinton wins Texas or Ohio, she'll remain behind in pledged delegates and can prevail only if superdelegates become convinced Obama is fatally flawed.

But she'll have the standing to stay in the race, as inconvenient as ever."

If Hillary is afflicted with a runaway gene it certainly is not a responsibility one, or she'd never have condoned nor supported her husbands many nefarious affairs. When Bill was caught with yet another floozy it was Hill's job to destroy the woman.

No, Mrs. Clinton was born with an entitlement gene.

Something a lot of Senators seem to have.