A lot of people are using this golden phrase that Jake Tapper reports that a Democratic Party official is using to describe Hillary's desire to win at all costs - The Tonya Harding Option. As Tapper puts it,
It implies that Clinton is so set on ensuring that Obama doesn't get the nomination, not only is she willing to take extra-ruthless steps, but in the end neither she nor Obama win the gold.
(In this metaphor, presumably, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., would be Oksana Baiul. Does that make former President Bill Clinton Jeff Gillooly?)
Slam!
And we saw the THO in action yesterday as Hillary tried to distract attention from her campaign's embarrassing admission that she'd made up the whole sniper episode in Bosnia. She took advantage of a question asked by the Pittsburgh Tribune editorial board to revisit the whole Reverend Wright controversy by saying that she would have quit that church if he'd been her paster. Very clever. Her whole campaign had been refusing to touch the controversy or make any comment on Reverend Wright for the past couple of weeks. But now when everyone is laughing at Hillary's Bosnia sniper myths, she tries to change the subject. That won't change people from laughing at her claims that she was dodging sniper fire as she and Sinbad and her daughter arrived in Bosnia to visit the troops when the video is now available to prove that she made the whole story up. But but giving her comments on Reverend Wright to the editorial board and then going in front of a mike and repeating the same lines ensures that this story will stay alive for a few more days.
I don't think she has a chance to win. I can't see enough superdelegates going back on giving the nomination to party's first viable black candidate after he won more delegates, states, and the popular vote just because of a story about his repellent pastor's sermons. These superdelegates are politicians who will not want to explain over and over to black and young voters why they turned their backs on Obama. But Hillary won't give up. She'll be the butt of more jokes about her claim that she "misspoke" about Bosnia because she was overtired yet she still thinks that she is the one ready to answer that 3 am phone call.
As IBD reminds us, William Safire's column that she is a congenital liar seems even more true today than it did in the 1990s. The difference now is that it is not just Republicans pointing to her lies. Now that her lies are aimed at blocking the Chosen One's accession to the White House everyone is ready to pile on in pointing out her lies.
As a Republican, I'm cheering her on. Whack away at Obama's knees all you want, Hillary. Rough him up enough to do the Republicans' jobs for them. And if you can make you and your big lug of a husband lose even more credibility and popular affection in the process, that's all to the good.
I always liked Oksana Baiul more than Nancy Kerrigan anyway.
