A Hill Too Far

This is just a wild guess... but I would speculate that one of the least happy people in the country today is none other than Hillary Clinton. Because you know what everyone is saying – albeit sotto voce -- “It's lucky for the Democrats that they didn't nominate Hillary.” Implication – McCain could have beaten her, even with Palin, even with the war, even with the financial meltdown, and even with – gasp! -- Bush hanging around his neck like the mythical albatross. So to add to the insult of having the nomination pulled out from under her, even though she and her husband own the Democratic Party lock, stock, and barrel, we have people across the fruited plain giving thanks that she wasn't the nominee. And not only that – Obama, with any luck (i.e. better than Carter), will wind up running for a second term (as he has already implied – well, he's right, you don't turn the U.S. into a people's republic overnight, after all)... which will put her firmly in the “senior (if not senile) citizen” camp by the time 2016 rolls around. At which point she will be even more of a hag, and a harridan, and an embittered political fossil, than she already is. Of course, she does have the satisfaction of knowing that a totally wrong-type woman failed to get elected to the vice presidency, and that is some consolation, I suppose. But the Clintons really are starting to look a lot more like “history” than like “current events”, and for that, at least, we can be thankful... although truer justice would have been served if they had been exiled to some remote island, like Napoleon.

If McCain and Palin had won, on the other hand, Hillary could have led the guerrilla war against them and their administration, Castro-style, for four years, after which time she would have been rested and ready (if not tanned – she doesn't do “tanned”, apparently) to topple them from what would surely have been their very shaky throne – assuming, of course, that we hadn't gotten into an ICBM-trading tiff with Russia by then, in which case being president of a pile of rubble might not have had much appeal (although she didn't seem to mind being “first lady” of Arkansas, which is arguably the next best thing).

Now I suppose with her presidential hopes all but dashed, she can further solidify her position in the Senate, which has, after all, served as the ash heap for any number of presidential wannabes over the years – think Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and now John McCain. But that is small consolidation for the most brilliant woman of our, or any other, time, who by rights should now be making plans to move all that furniture she borrowed back into the White House. Ah, 'tis a sorry sight indeed... but one that softens the sting of the Obama victory for the rest of us.