"Yes, We Can"

Hillary Clinton was truly remarkable today, making the most difficult speech of her life and finding her voice as a national leader over and above that of a politician seeking office.

Coupling pride in her own achievement on behalf of all women, she rallied them to the imminent cause of backing Barack Obama in restoring their country to its best self--to "take our energy, our passion and our strength and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama...I ask all of you to join me in working as hard for Barack Obama as you have for me."

She encouraged party unity, acknowledging the hard fight and the disappointment of her supporters, while reminding them that "the Democratic Party is a family, and now it's time to restore the ties that bind us together."

Clinton's full-throated endorsement had a heartfelt quality that should quiet critics who see her as cold and manipulative, culminating in her raising the Obama banner of "Yes, We Can."

For those of my generation, she brought to mind an old song popularized by Bing Crosby in the 1930s:

Three little words, oh what I'd give for that wonderful phrase,/To hear those three little words, that's all I'd live for the rest of my days./And what I feel in my heart, they tell sincerely./No other words can tell it half so clearly./Three little words, eight little letters which simply mean I love you.

Today Hillary Clinton got the words and the music just right.

The Clintons' Long Goodbye

No one expected they would go quietly, but the Clintons may be maneuvering the former First Lady off the Democratic ticket by continuing to strong-arm Barack Obama rather than graciously conceding his nomination.

"Hillary Rodham Clinton," AP reported yesterday, "will concede Tuesday night that Barack Obama has the delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, campaign officials said, effectively ending her bid to be the nation's first female president."

She did no such thing.

Coupled with her coy statement during the day about being "open" to the vice-presidency if it "would help the party's prospects in November," Sen. Clinton seems to be confirming the worst nightmare of the Obama campaign--that she would be a prima donna on the ticket, going her own way, singing her own arias while you-know-who kept tap-dancing not quite out of sight.

For Democrats who want to end the Bush nightmare, all this is disheartening. It isn't necessary to see Obama as the Second Coming to want him to be able to make his race against McCain without added weight on his back.

As the super-delegates climb on the bandwagon this week, will they be able to persuade both Hillary and Bill Clinton to stop campaigning and maneuvering and just get aboard? Otherwise they may be wrecking Obama's future--and their own.

None of us wants to end up with the scorpion-and-frog punchline, "Because it's in my nature."

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?