Rasputin

If you'll pardon just a smidgen of gloating, this foolish blogger did insist a few weeks back, contrary to the torrent of obituaries the big guys were pumping out, Hillary Rodham Clinton's march to Washington to claim her White House was hardly finished; that it was folly to count her out. Nope: despite losing eleven primaries in a row and loud infighting among her staff, despite myriad calls from liberal pundits to quit, she hung in there, re-organized and is back, better than ever. And look who's reeling now. From ABC News:

Samantha Power, a senior foreign policy adviser to Sen. Barack Obama, resigned Friday morning after calling Sen. Hillary Clinton a "monster" in an interview with a European newspaper.

"With deep regret, I am resigning from my role as an adviser the Obama campaign effective today," said Power in a statement issued by the Obama campaign. "Last Monday, I made inexcusable remarks that are at marked variance from my oft-stated admiration for Senator Clinton and from the spirit, tenor and purpose of the Obama campaign. And I extend my deepest apologies to Senator Clinton, Senator Obama and the remarkable team I have worked with over these long 14 months."

In a conference call organized by the Clinton campaign (emphasis added), Democratic Reps. Nita Lowey and Gregory Meeks of New York, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, decried the remarks made in The Scotsman by Power, 37, a Pulitzer-Prize winning professor at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University.

"This is an important test for Senator Obama, " said Lowey. "It's really a test of character … You really wonder how Sen. Obama can have a person like that, as bright as she might be, advising his campaign."

Wasserman Schultz said Power's comments violated the spirit of the campaign run by Obama, who "has talked about politics of hope throughout," since her description of Clinton in the interview "degenerated into negative personal attacks and name-calling," which Wasserman Schultz called "below the belt" and "out of bounds."

A senior Obama staffer makes a not-terribly-unreasonable accusation of Hillary, considering her and her husband's twenty-five year history of lies, smears and dirty tricks, yet utterly shameless Hillary manages to get the woman fired. Better yet (and this is classic Hillary), she doesn't do it herself, rather others, including members of congress, do it at her behest. Just imagine the myriad late-night phone calls, the hasty script writing and its distribution to the players in order to pull off this performance: doff your hat in admiration of the superb Clinton machine. Do Barack Obama, his naive lieutenants and all those dopey disciples have any idea who and what they are up against?

Recently, Rush Limbaugh, of all people, instructed his so-called "ditto-heads" to cross party lines wherever they could and vote for Hillary in the primaries; the thinking being her scorched-earth tactics to win the nomination will fracture the Democratic party and make it easier for the Republicans to keep the White House. What that tiresome gasbag doesn't get (but she does) is Hillary and Obama are carbon copies politically. Once Obama's been dispatched to Illinois, tail between his legs, the Clinton machine will go into overdrive against the Republicans. Within a few short weeks, Obama's supporters will no longer even remember how to pronounce his name, the man is so easy to forget. John McCain would make mincemeat of him. Against Hillary he will face the toughest political fight of his life.