The Clintons not only never know when to quit; they also never realize when they've gone too far--and that has been the Achilles heel that has tripped 'em up every time.

Some little girlie down in Arkansas wants to sue Bill for allegedly exposing himself to her when he was governor; Bill says, Let's settle; but Hillary says, NEVER!  LET'S FIGHT! 

(All the way to impeachment--two years of a national nightmare that gave grade-school kids a shockingly clear understanding of just what was meant by the term, "blow job.")

Special prosecutors ask for all the documents pertaining to a loser land deal, which the Clintons both know full well will reveal no wrongdoing; but Hillary says, NEVER!  LET'S FIGHT! 

(And we get Whitewater, which dominated news coverage for months on end and put an innocent woman in prison for a year and a half of her life because she wouldn't lie to Ken Starr and say she'd witnessed wrongdoing on the Clinton's part.  All of which they'd've known if the papers had just been released up front.)

When The First Black President begins to complain before the South Carolina primary that race is going to hand the victory to a REAL potential black president--he is warned, not just by Clinton campaign insiders and civil right leaders, but by the old lion himself, Ted Kennedy, to back off.  He says, NEVER!  LET'S FIGHT! and does not back off. 

(Obama wins by a landslide and Kennedy gives his endorsement and blessing to Obama.  And offended African Americans, who had been pretty evenly split on who they were going to support up to that point, flock en masse to Obama and pretty much stay there.)

Then, when the Kitchen Sink Strategy was cooked up behind closed doors of the Clinton campaign to throw anything and everything they could think of at the charismatic young candidate in order to bring him down; they started with theatrics--whining that "the media" was unfairly attacking her and going easy on him and then turning around and shaking his hand and kissing up all in one night; raging in front of the cameras in a fire-engine red suit about a two-months' old campaign mailout as though it were a brand-new outrage the next day; sarcastically mocking him--and by extension, his supporters--on the next; accusing him of sleazy real estate deals (hmmm) the next; making wild accusations that Obama was "imitating Ken Starr" the next; leaking a scurrilous (though innocent) photo of him in a head turban the next; and unveiling a McCain supporter's purloined YouTube ad the next couple of days before the primaries that was deliberately designed to frighten people in the best tradition of Karl Rove--to "scare up votes" as Obama put it. 

Finally, Hillary winds up her happy-warrior week by telling 60 Minutes that, no, Obama was not a Muslim..."as far as I know."

Bull's eye.

And it was working.  This Kitchen Sink Strategy.

Newspaper and network newsies, thus scolded by mama and Saturday Night Live, didn't want to get into trouble again, so they worked to prove how very fair they were by dumping scores of stories designed to cast doubt on Obama, from articles about his Chicago church, to articles about the Rezko real estate deal, to articles examining what he had--and had not--accomplished in state government (even if they did quote mostly Republican colleagues)--and in the U.S. Senate, to more tiresome examinations as to whether or not he really COULD be a Muslim, to whether or not he was tough enough to beat Hillary--let alone answer the red phone at three a.m., to snotty op-eds about all those crazy fainting fans (which never mentioned that those same supporters had probably been standing in line or on their feet at a rally for hours, and that the room gets hot with thousands of people in it, and that they don't sell concessions, so you don't eat until it's all over, but whatever.  We're aaaaallllll "Obamamaniacs.")

And all's fair in love and campaigning, said political junkies.  After all, he'll face much worse from Republicans (I doubt it) come the fall, and if he's not tough enough to handle HER, then he doesn't deserve the nomination.

Okay.  Fair enough. 

And fair enough, I guess, that rather than answer attacks from a candidate and her surrogates, he ALSO had to answer attacks from a candidate, her surrogates, a popular former president who happened to be married to her and his surrogates, and a Republican nominee and HIS surrogates.

He lost some steam.  Lost some votes.  Lost some primaries.

News footage and cover stories and front-page headlines coughed up hundreds of photographs of a shining, beaming, triumphant Hillary.  Time even went so far as to put a gloriously happy Hillary on the cover with the headline, THE FIGHTER.

Obama was on the defensive--never a good position for a candidate in a long and exhausting race.  He still had plenty of money and plenty of supporters, but his famous momentum was arrested, if not halted altogether.

And then, because she is a Clinton, she had to go too far.  

And she didn't just do it once--she did it three times in a row, in full view of reporters--because she was so sure of herself that, when in fighting mode, you just keep on fighting even when you're winning.  You don't let up until your opponent is not just down, but DEAD.

Problem with that is that, even in bare-knuckled street fighting, there are always at least one or two rules.

And in politics, if there is one rule and one rule only when it comes to the presidential race, it is this:  YOU DON'T GIVE THE OTHER PARTY AMMUNITION TO USE AGAINST YOUR OPPONENT IF THAT OPPONENT HAPPENS TO WIN THE NOMINATION.

Because the bottom line is not personal ambition.  The bottom line is that Democrats wind up in the White House.  Not Republicans.  So you pull up short, for the sake of the party and the nation--if you are anybody but a Clinton.

It's a very simple rule, really.  And even if it didn't exist, most people with any sense of character and honor wouldn't cross over that line anyway.  The stakes are just too high, not just for our party, but for our country.

But when Hillary smells blood in the water, she's going to slice through the water for the kill.

(Shark fishermen, you know, put bloody meat in the water to attract the sharks, and then they catch 'em.  The sharks, intent on the smell of blood, aren't alert to the fact that they are about to get caught by their own greed.)

Heading straight for the blood trail, Hillary gives a cold-eyed unblinking stare and says something to the effect that, THE ONLY PEOPLE REALLY QUALIFIED TO BE PRESIDENT ARE ME AND THE REPUBLICAN.

She says it several different ways.  She talks about the "commander-in-chief" threshhold, whatever that is.  Where, someone tortured in a prison of war for five years, who goes on to serve 25 years in congress and the senate, many of those years on the Armed Services Committee--is actually EQUALLY qualified to be commander-in-chief with someone who slept with a president.  (As far as we know.)

President Laura Bush, anyone?

One way or the other, she repeats the claim, over and over again, that "Obambi," as Maureen Dowd of the NY Times likes to call him, could never be trusted to answer that big red phone in the night.  Only Hillary.  And if not Hillary, then the Republican opponent.

She is warned--just as the Clintons are FREQUENTLY warned when they are going too far, but she ignores the warnings and keeps on saying it.  To add confusing insult to injury, she and Bill then begin repeating to reporters that Obama would make a FINE vice-president to a President Hillary.

(So...I guess...if she has a heart attack and dies after taking office...then an unqualified LOSER would be answering that phone?  I'm just asking.  Not sure how you can have it both ways.)

And then comes the inevitable Clinton Backlash.

The party faithful begin to rise up, and say, WAIT JUST A MINUTE HERE MISSY!  What the hell are you doing?  If Obama gets the nomination, you just gave John McCain half a dozen campaign ads to run in the fall.

But in Hillary's Kitchen Sink Strategy, it's like, you throw everything but the kitchen sink at the man, but he keeps comin', so you rip out the sink and throw IT too, but he STILL keeps comin,' so what the hell? 

You tear out the gas stove.  Now, you know that by tearing out the gas stove to throw at him, you run the risk of blowing up the whole kitchen and whoever's in it, right?

But you don't care.  You just want the m-f to DIE!

Sniffing danger, bloggers begin to cry FOUL!

Op-eds start to say...Fighting rough and tough is fine; we LIKE fighting rough and tough...but giving an edge to the opposing party just so that you and ONLY YOU can benefit?

Even if it destroys the party or the first real chance Dems have got to take back the White House?  Even if the whole thing explodes come November?

That kind of ambition and lust for power, they say...That's just CRAVEN.

Others chortle, NOW DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT THE NINETIES WERE REALLY LIKE?

Die-hard supporters start having second thoughts.  Writing for HuffingtonPost.com, one lists the string of Clinton scandals and problems of the nineties--how he made excuses and apologies in order to continue to support them--but NOW?  

"I'm through apologizing," he says.
       
The Clintons...they can't seem to help themselves.  They gotta keep PUSHING.

And that Ken Starr accusation launched at Obama's head with the kitchen sink?

Obama, treating the campaign much like a courtroom battle, basically says, "You know, I wasn't going to get into all that, but since YOU brought it up..."

And he starts asking...What did Hillary actually DO on all those trips overseas?  Did she negotiate treaties?  Did she set policy?  Did she effect world peace?  Bring a war to an end?  Stop genocide?

Hillary starts stammering, Yes!  I did!

But those who were there say...Uh...nooooo, you didn't actually.

And Obama starts asking...Where are the records of your time at the White House?  Let's look at your appointments and see how many crucial meetings you actually took part in.  After all, you like to claim you were right in there, making policy, right?  So let's introduce the record into evidence and examine it ourselves.

Hillary stumbles and says, This stuff takes time.  Lotsa time.

And he starts asking...Let's see your tax returns.  You file jointly with Bill?  How much does he make and where does all that money come from?  Where'd you GET five million bucks to loan your campaign?

And she says...Later.

And he starts asking...Show us a list of the people who donated to the Clinton presidential library.  How many donated half a million dollars or more?  And what do they expect in return from yet another Clinton White House?  Stymied investigations?  Regulations overlooked?  Pardons for friends?  Special favors?  ACCESS?  Show us the list of donors and we'll follow the money.

She doesn't answer.

And he says, I got news for you lady.  I don't WANT to be your vice-president.  I am running for President of the United States.  

Sensing lurking fishermen everywhere...Hillary starts to back off a bit on the McCain comparisons but, as always with the Clintons, it's too late. 

Now half the party is livid with rage...and then...comes the whispering...

IS SHE DELIBERATELY DOING THIS SO THAT, IF OBAMA WINS THE NOMINATION, McCAIN WILL BE IN A BETTER POSITION TO WIN IN NOVEMBER...SO THAT SHE CAN RUN AGAIN IN 2012?

So that she can come back and say, See?  I told you he wasn't ready.  Now he lost and McCain is in the White House, so, aren't you ready for me NOW?

I'm trying very very hard not to be that cynical.

But I tell you one thing...If there is any truth whatsoever to that rumor...ANY truth...

Knowing that John McCain will continue Bush's War all through a first term in office and THEN some...

That means that, in a most conservative estimate imaginable...at least two to three thousand or more United States soldiers and Marines could be expected to die in Iraq during those four years.

Maybe my son or nephews.

For what?

Hillary's ambition?

I certainly hope that the rumors I'm hearing about Hillary's plan to cinch the presidency four years from now if we don't give her the nomination she thinks is hers for the asking RIGHT NOW--I surely hope they are not true. 

People get angry and frustrated and anxious and float these ideas that may or may not be paranoid.  Against all odds to the contrary, I'm trying to give Hillary the benefit of the doubt, here.

But I am vividly reminded of Richard Nixon's run for the presidency in 1968.

The country was ripped down the middle--those for and against the war--as well as generations and political parties and races and every other division you can think of.  A hugely unpopular president was on his lame way out.  A charismatic and much-beloved Democratic candidate had been shot down just after winning the California primary.  The subsequent Democratic convention two months' later was rent with controversy and violence.

Nixon exploited those divisions, and he promised the American people that he had a "Secret Plan" to end the Vietnam War.

That "Secret Plan" gave him a slim victory over Hubert Humphrey.

Yeah, and then, for the next three and a half years, the war dragged on and thousands more died.  Tens of thousands.

Then, right before the re-election campaign cranked up, the languishing peace talks suddenly--MIRACULOUSLY--picked up steam and the war began to wind down and Richard Nixon was re-elected in a landslide.  (And what a productive presidency he had, eh?)

But Nixon deliberately and cynically used the war as a political ploy, just like Bush did in '04, and I hope they both burn in hell for that.

I don't ever want to put Hillary Clinton in the same Rogue's Gallery as the likes of Nixon and Bush.  Like many, I supported her for many years and I, too, excused and apologized for the Clintons to friends who hated them.

But she's gone too far this time, and if there is any chance at all that she's doing it for her own political ambition and her hopes to run again in 2012--THE WAR BE DAMNED--Democrats be damned, Barack Obama be damned, and anybody else who gets in her way be damned...

If this is a political ploy to strengthen the Republicans in November if she does not get the nomination she craves--knowing full well that they are running their campaign on Bush's War...and they take over the White House, in part, because Obama got the nomination but was fatally crippled by the huge kitchen explosion that occurred when Hillary ripped out the stove to throw at him...and they continue this war for four more years...

Then Hillary Clinton deserves to have her portrait hung right on up there with Bob MacNamara, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Nixon, Karl Rove, and George W. Bush.

I don't wanna believe it.

But the Clintons just keep taking it one step too far.