God Deliver Us

The Slangwhanger-in-Chief's knees are bent in constant supplication to the deity at hand. He keeps praying that Hillary is too smart to run. The personal vitriol quotient from the right will drown out any issues, as it did over health care in 94.

And there is no enthusiasm for her among real Democrats. She's Humphrey to Feingold's McCarthy and hence irreparable, no matter her level of skill. By turning against the war Kerry and Edwards weren't pandering, they were acknowledging the flow of history, an act at which politicians are notoriously ungraceful.

But a cautious centrist with enormous personal baggage is no Democrat for 08. The 06 midterms and the 08 presidential are going to be about repairing the ravages of Bush, and Clinton doesn't have enough distance from him on the main issue (Iraq) while the rabid psychosis against a powerful woman will obscure any other policy differences.

Maybe it ought not to be like that, but it is. She's poison for a variety of reasons, all of them good sound Democratic ones.