If Edwards had quit before Iowa, Hillary would have been the Democratic candidate

It is another interesting twist of history that fate, along with the media led by Tim Russert and Co., seems to have conspired to deprive Hillary Clinton of the Democratic nomination.

Consider this: in January 2008, long after Edwards' affair and long after he had lied repeatedly to deny it, Clinton came a humiliating 3rd in the Iowa caucuses. The final count was: Barack Obama with 940 delegates with Edwards at 744 and Clinton at 737. Based on the voter demographic for Clinton, if Edwards' delegates were divided 2-to-1 in her favor, we would end up with Clinton 1233 and Obama 1188 (51 to 49). This would have reinforced her image of invincibility and likely propelled her to the nomination.

All this tells us one thing: men really have done Hillary in: starting with her own husband first, then Russert and then Edwards. However, i still don't see Obama's hand anywhere in the mix.

Let me be clear: i do not like the way Clinton handled her loss. It had to be one of the most graceless ways to lose, from playing the race card against her own party rival to wishing for his assassination. Contrast this to McCain who promptly upbraided his own supporter (talk show host Bill Cunningham) when he called Obama by his middle name "Hussein".

All i am pointing out is that if Clinton had won in Iowa, the rest of the Obama magic may well have been history.

What if Russert had died 6 months earlier?

Now that some time has passed since Russert's passing, it is time for us to evaluate his true impact on this Presidential election. If Tim Russert had died six months earlier, Hillary might have been the Democratic candidate. Just a thought . . . in general, he was her toughest questioner for months, if not years.

He was the pundit who asked the first question on drivers licenses to illegal immigrants and he was the one who first indicated that the Democratic nominee was known and that the race was over.

The underlying Washington talk behind all this is that the media disliked Hillary Clintons because of her prima donna attitudes for several months when she was seen as the inevitable front-runner. The difference was that while others like Keith Olbermann and Rush Limbaugh attacked her personally, Russert went after her while still retaining substantive policy issues on his agenda. This is a testament as much to his skills as a journalist as his overall lack of partisanship.

In the end, the nomination was Clinton's to lose and guess what? She did.

Praise for Russert's objectivity only shows how pathetic most other journalists are

Tim Russert is being eulogized today as having been fair and objective and all things wonderful. The underlying truth behind this is not that Russert is a saint for having done his job. Objectivity is Journalism 101, but that we now have this multi-billion dollar industry called opinion journalism.

Russert's real impact was not that he was a good person or a fair journalist, both of which he undoubtedly was. His real impact on current history was that he was not objective enough.

On October 30, 2007, he asked Clinton the question that, in one instant, stripped her of her credibility, even her appearance of integrity: he asked her a direct question on driver's licenses for illegal aliens, which she was unable to answer. That was the time when Clinton was getting all the difficult questions first while Obama received SNL's pillows. For many months after that, he was one of MSNBC's main cheerleaders for Obama. In early May, he went one step further and declared that Clinton was done.

This is not to take anything away from the fact that Obama was clearly the better campaigner than Clinton. (If you click on the pillow URL above, you will see how she made her complaint and then promptly shot herself in the foot by saying that she had criticized NAFTA "from the very beginning".) This is also not to take away anything from the fact that the longer this race continues, the worse McCain looks, at least as of this writing.

The point is that if Russert and other journalists were not so subjective, perhaps the American people would have more of an opportunity to choose their own leaders. In this day of the Internet, we certainly have the potential to approach the ideal of direct democracy.

Anyone could be assassinated tomorrow--even Hillary

I could die tomorrow.

Any particular individual could die today or tomorrow or some time in the future.

Presidential candidates are not immune to this but for Hillary to make the possibility of another human being's death--Barack Obama's, in this case--a reason for her to stay on in the campaign makes her even more despicable than she was before. Here is what she said to the Argus Leader, a newspaper in South Dakota:



In what is an even more calculated statement, she apologizes, rightly, to the Kennedy family but not to Senator Obama--can we go lower in class here?

“Earlier today, I was discussing the Democratic primary history, and in the course of that discussion mentioned the campaigns that both my husband and Senator Kennedy waged in California in June in 1992 and 1968. And I was referencing those to make the point that we have had nomination, primary contests that go into June. That’s an historic fact."

“The Kennedys have been much on my mind in the last days because of Senator Kennedy, and I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation and particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. i certainly had no intention of that whatsoever.”

“My view is that we have to look to the past and to our leaders who have inspired us and give us a lot to live up to. And I’m honored to hold Senator Kennedy’s seat in the United States Senate from the state of New York, And have the highest regard for the entire Kennedy family. Thanks.”

At least we all know one thing: if and when Hillary finally gets out, she will have a career arguing with Ann Coulter one-on-one!