It's damn fascinating to watch a fully matured specimen of the postmodern warrior caste - fierce, yet coddled - flare out and burn as slowly and painfully as Hillary Clinton in the closing days of her primary run.

For all her never-give-in, win-at-all-costs thunder, she's smacked into the soft reality of American democracy: Seemingly puffy and insubstantial as a Chee-to, the steely center of the system becomes apparent as the last desperate option has gone to turf. It's win or lose. And, most of the time, the quietly desperate masses, poking at their voting machines... rule.

Hillary's one, flailing shot at overturning destiny is intervention by the super delegates. If she can convince them of Obama's "inelectability", she believes, there is still an outside chance for her to become the first American President to look truly smashing in heels.

But that option's darkside is it's inescapably bust-out seaminess. If they fall her way and hand over the candidacy, this will be victory by proxy, and mom-and-pop Democrats won't be pleased that their horse is picked via backroom chumminess and deal-making. A super-delegate reversal of Obama's narrow primary win is the opposite number of his populist appeal, and few in the hinterland see the party's insiders and hacks - as well as our prostituted Congressional delegation - as adding up to anything more than a Pinkie-Ring Mafia, a clearinghouse for contract skim, hush money and whore wrangling.

This morning, both Rahm Immanuel and erstwhile candidate John Edwards called Obama the presumptive Democratic candidate. Appearing on "Morning Joe" on MSNBC, Edwards gently prodded Clinton, saying he bowed out in late January - before the much-vaunted Super Tuesday - because he felt it was good for the party.

The superdelegates are Hillary's only hope. For the rest of us, hope rests on super delegates, including the still-balky Edwards, to declare for Obama now, and end this pointless tap dance.