Democracy for Vancouver

I thought, having presumed that Hillary Clinton would not concede, that nothing in her speech could phase me last night.

Boy, was I wrong. Bile and white hot disgust threatened to bypass my clamped jaws and erupt out the sides of my neck as Clinton trilled me, me, me with nary a word for Obama’s nomination:

Now, the question is: Where do we go from here? And given how far we’ve come and where we need to go as a party, it’s a question I don’t take lightly. This has been a long campaign, and I will be making no decisions tonight.

…So, to the 18 million people who voted for me, and to our many other supporters out there of all ages, I want to hear from you. I hope you’ll go to my Web site at HillaryClinton.com and share your thoughts with me and help in any way that you can.

Help with what, pray tell?

Help with paying off your campaign debt? Or help with taking your campaign all the way to Denver and fucking the country and the party up right, once and for all?

As many of us have suspected all along, this is not about the country or the war, about health care or veterans or even the lowly democratic party. This is about nothing more or less than the power and prestige of Hillary Rodham Clinton, and who she gets to piss on on her way out of the process:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama twice called Hillary Clinton’s mobile phone after the momentous victory speech which yesterday propelled him a step closer to the White House.

And both times, he went through to his defeated rival’s voicemail…

Senator Clinton - who still has not formally conceded defeat in the long, bruising campaign - finally returned the call as his plane was about to fly out of St. Paul to Washington.

Whatever else this first truly competitive female presidential candidate has accomplished, she has proven herself unfit to be the Democratic Party standard-bearer even in the VP slot. By her race-baiting, red-meat tactics and her steadfast refusal to put party and country ahead of personal ambition, Clinton has shown that she cannot be trusted. If Obama proffered her the VP slot, what would stop her at the convention from trying to get the delegates to flip the ticket? At this point, I would not put anything past the Clintons.

But, just from the straightforward standpoint of winning (and losing) by the rules, the Globe and Mail put it best in their article, The Cost of Clinton’s Narcissism:

[Ms. Clinton's] much-vaunted tenacity, a highly valued quality among presidential candidates, is truly remarkable. But she did not properly make the case for herself, because she did not believe that she had to make it until it was too late.

Entitlement is a dangerous and inexcusable characteristic in any candidate. No individual, even one as talented and as well-connected as Ms. Clinton, is entitled to lead his or her country; to do so is an enormous privilege and responsibility that must be earned. In democratic countries, few dynasties will be sustained in the absence of humility.

I’m not sure the Clintons know the meaning of the word.

Bob Harris’s succinct take: