The New York Times' Frank Rich's latest column was built on two premises:

1) That due to their obsession with Hillary Clinton, pundits were flat wrong in predicting the convention would resemble a war scene, with Clinton unleashing her supporters against Obama.

2) That the media sweats the small stuff, as he made clear in one of his passages: "As obama said, As Obama said, this is a big election. We will only begin to confront the magnitude of our choice when and if we stop being distracted by small, let alone utterly fictitious, things."

But doesn't this sound to you like a perfect description of Maureen Dowd's work? In a recent piece, for instance, Dowd did precisely what Rich condemns: inventing an utterly ficticious mini-novel in which the Clintons and John McCain conspired to destroy Barack Obama:

Dowd (8-19-08):

 “Our toast to The One,” they say in unison, “is that he’s toast.”

“Obama should have picked you, Hillary,” John McCain tells her. “It isn’t fair, my friend. But it just makes it easier for me to whup him.”

“Don’t worry, John, I’ve put it behind me,” Hillary replies. “I’m looking toward the future now, a future that looks very bright, once we send Twig Legs back to the back bench.”

They chortle with delight.

Hillary's orchestrating a play within the play in Denver. Just as Hamlet used the device to show that his stepfather murdered his father, Hillary will try to show the Democrats they chose the wrong savior.

But it was never in either Clinton’s interest to sabotage Obama. Hillary Clinton’s Tuesday speech, arguably the best of her career, was as much about her own desire to reconcile with the alienated Obama Democrats she might need someday as it was about releasing her supporters to Obama. The Clintons never do stop thinking about tomorrow.