Wile E. Clinton

You know how, in the old Road Runner cartoons, Wile E Coyote, in hot pursuit, would routinely careen off the side of a cliff and then spend ten seconds running through thin air before he realized that there was nothing under his feet? And then fall? That’s Hillary Clinton’s campaign, more or less — except she stubbornly refuses to fall.

I don’t know why she’s doing this, or how — but I am sure that she won’t be able to keep it up. There is no mathematical way for her to win this nomination. None. You can suspend gravity for a while, but you can’t beat it. Ever. So it seem to me that a rational coyote/candidate, given an inexplicable reprieve from the laws of physics, would sort of creep carefully back onto terra firma and concede defeat. You may not have your road runner, but at least you’re not a tiny puff of smoke at the bottom of a ravine.

But … no. She seems absolutely intent on doing as much damage to herself as possible. A couple of weeks ago she donned her Cheney hat and said that obliterating an entire people (Iranian people, in this case) was “on the table”, in the current parlance of American jingoism. This week, after her should-have-been-decisive defeat/worthless victory in North Carolina and Indiana, she said, basically, that she’s a better candidate than Obama because she’s white, and poor white people like other white people more than they like black people.

Both of these statement are reprehensible, of course, but they’re also deeply strange coming from Hillary Clinton. She’s better, and smarter, than this. Her language smacks of desperation, yes, but also of insanity. She’s clearly come unhinged. Someone very close to her needs to lean over, and whisper into her ear, and lead her back to solid ground. Before she damages herself, and her legacy, beyond repair.