Hillary Clinton's Nixon Moment

Who will tell her it's time to go? Certainly not her husband, whose dynastic hopes will die hardest. Nor the limp leaders of Congressional Democrats, although Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein have been clearing their throats. Al Gore is too busy saving the planet and Howard Dean is just trying to hang onto his job as party chairman.

As Barack Obama now takes the lead in the slow dribble of superdelegates into his pledge pool, there is no one to do for Hillary Clinton what Republican leaders did for Richard Nixon in August 1974, when the Senate Minority Leader, House Minority Leader and Barry Goldwater, the former presidential candidate, went to the White House and told him that hanging on was hopeless. Nixon stepped down the next day.

But the Clintons are not good listeners and, as their desperation grows, she is openly relying on race, telling USA Today that "Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again...There's a pattern emerging here."

One of her non-fans, Peggy Noonan, writes in today's Wall Street Journal: "The question 'Who will tell her, who can make her go?' is really the question 'Who will save the Democratic Party in 2008?' It cannot be doubted at this point that real damage is being done to its standard-bearer and to all those who will be on the ticket with him."

But with friends like its weak-kneed nabobs, the Democratic Party doesn't need enemies. When will its leaders do for Hillary Clinton what Republicans did for Richard Nixon before he took his own party down in flames?