There’s an old fable about a condemned prisoner, who makes a deal with the King. He promises that, if his life is spared for a year, he will teach the King’s favorite horse to sing. The King, amused, decides to give him a shot.

As he’s being led back to his cell in the stable, the guard asks him, “What are you doing? Are you crazy? You’ll never teach that horse to sing.”

The prisoner replies, “I have a year. Much can happen in a year. The King could die. I could die. The horse could die. Or, the horse might learn to sing.”

After Super Tuesday, many viewed Hillary’s campaign as condemned, and many urged her to pull out for the good of the party. But the good of the party will always come second (or third, or fourth, or…) to what’s good for Hillary, and her ambition, and sense of entitlement to both the nomination and the presidency. And anyone who doesn’t think that she has such a sense only has to go rewatch that interview with Katie Couric, in which she confidently asserted that she has not considered what she will do if she is not the nominee, because she is going to be the nominee (note: this is why her campaign didn’t have a plan for after Super Tuesday–they didn’t think that they needed one). She is not going to give up, any more than when Bill was under fire, and impeached. As John Podhoretz notes:

Hillary Clinton is not stupid. She knows perfectly well that she’s not going to catch up with Barack Obama when it comes to delegates or the overall popular vote in the primaries, and that her lead with superdelegates is not at all secure. She’s staying in the race to see what happens — to lengthen it so that there is a chance Obama will implode for some reason or combination of reasons, leaving her to pick up the pieces.

Exactly. She has nothing to lose by staying in, except for the potential wrath of some in her party, to which she is indifferent. And now that Obama’s media bubble is finally popping, it doesn’t look like that bad a bet. She may not be able to tutor singing horses, but it looks like she’s finally taught the press to cover Obama more objectively, which may be all that she needs.

But even if it doesn’t pan out, I’ve predicted before that if she doesn’t get the nomination, she’ll figure out how to sabotage Obama’s candidacy, because she’ll figure that her only hope is to run against McCain in 2012. I still think that’s true, and I’d say that the fact that she’s willing to tear the party apart by fighting so hard for a poisoned chalice is pretty strong evidence of it.

Well, he may not be able to do it much longer:

…there’s no cherry-picking occurring here. Furthermore, the cherry-picking defense, even when plausible, has never been accepted when it comes to racism. Don Imus, for example, has received widespread condemnation for very occasional statements that showed racial insensitivity. Trent Lott was condemned for one statement praising Strom Thurmond’s 1948 presidential campaign.

Obama appears to be playing a double game here, distancing himself from Wright without really denouncing him. It’s essentially the same game Obama (we now see) has been playing for years — cater to racist black nationalists at home while presenting himself as “post-racial” nationally.

Ah, but you see, according to the narrative, Reverend Wright can’t be a racist, because it’s not possible for blacks to be racist. Only the Man, with the power, can be a racist.

You know, this double game kind of reminds me of when Yasser Arafat would give one speech in English, talking about peace and negotiations with Israel, and then the very same day, give another one in Arabic, calling for the destruction of that nation and the death of the Jews. But in this case, the media doesn’t even have the excuse of not understanding the language.

[Update a few minutes later]

Another good point, from Mark Hemingway:

How many times has Obama used “judgment” as a cudgel against his opponents this campaign? Well, choosing someone to offer your family spiritual guidance that isn’t an anti-semite coddling, America-hating, race-baiting crazypants would appear to be a far easier decision than deciding whether to go to war. I anxiously await to see how Obama explains this aspect of his celebrated decision-making ability.

Don’t we all.

[Update a while later]

New readers who came via Instapundit might want to see my follow-on thoughts on Hillary teaching a horse to sing. Or just click on the main page in the link above, and check out the place in general. Anyway, welcome to all.

A screed, over at the Navlog:

That’s it for me. I am no fan of Ms. Clinton. And as a conservative I have become used to perpetual abuse and viciousness from a Left my mother would neither recognize nor stand for, despite her politics of 40 years ago. But enough is enough, Mr. Wright, you whiney candyass. The fact is that you, Mr. Wright, will never know what it is like to step out of school as a kid and year after year, hear someone yell, “Get the kike!” and have four or five kids jump you and beat you up, sometimes leaving you unconscious by the side of the road. The difference, Mr. Wright, is that Jews — and Mormons and Catholics and Adians — who suffered through such a childhood 40 or 50 years ago never called a press conference, never demanded ‘reparations,’ never went to the press with demands, never just sat on their asses and complained. They just determined to work even harder to succeed and learned to fight. Mr. Wright, you are a poisonous embarrassment to the United States and to black America. That Mr. Obama refuses to call you for what you are and continues to seek your support should be all that a voter needs to know this November.

He not only “refuses to call him for what he is,” but he gives him thousands of dollars (while Michelle whines about what a terrible world it is in which she has to pay back her loans that got her through the Ivy League and into her multi-hundred-thousand-dollar job), and he takes his young children to church on Sundays to poison their minds with this America hatred.

I can understand why the Clinton campaign is so furious with the media, when they could have been reporting this stuff months ago. On the other hand, I have no sympathy, since Bill Clinton could never have gotten elected without similarly fawning and myopic press coverage. If I were a Democrat, I would be very, very concerned about what’s going to happen this summer and fall. And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving political party.

A screed, over at the Navlog:

That’s it for me. I am no fan of Ms. Clinton. And as a conservative I have become used to perpetual abuse and viciousness from a Left my mother would neither recognize nor stand for, despite her politics of 40 years ago. But enough is enough, Mr. Wright, you whiney candyass. The fact is that you, Mr. Wright, will never know what it is like to step out of school as a kid and year after year, hear someone yell, “Get the kike!” and have four or five kids jump you and beat you up, sometimes leaving you unconscious by the side of the road. The difference, Mr. Wright, is that Jews — and Mormons and Catholics and Adians — who suffered through such a childhood 40 or 50 years ago never called a press conference, never demanded ‘reparations,’ never went to the press with demands, never just sat on their asses and complained. They just determined to work even harder to succeed and learned to fight. Mr. Wright, you are a poisonous embarrassment to the United States and to black America. That Mr. Obama refuses to call you for what you are and continues to seek your support should be all that a voter needs to know this November.

He not only “refuses to call him for what he is,” but he gives him thousands of dollars (while Michelle whines about what a terrible world it is in which she has to pay back her loans that got her through the Ivy League and into her multi-hundred-thousand-dollar job), and he takes his young children to church on Sundays to poison their minds with this America hatred.

I can understand why the Clinton campaign is so furious with the media, when they could have been reporting this stuff months ago. On the other hand, I have no sympathy, since Bill Clinton could never have gotten elected without similarly fawning and myopic press coverage. If I were a Democrat, I would be very, very concerned about what’s going to happen this summer and fall. And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving political party.

A screed, over at the Navlog:

That’s it for me. I am no fan of Ms. Clinton. And as a conservative I have become used to perpetual abuse and viciousness from a Left my mother would neither recognize nor stand for, despite her politics of 40 years ago. But enough is enough, Mr. Wright, you whiney candyass. The fact is that you, Mr. Wright, will never know what it is like to step out of school as a kid and year after year, hear someone yell, “Get the kike!” and have four or five kids jump you and beat you up, sometimes leaving you unconscious by the side of the road. The difference, Mr. Wright, is that Jews — and Mormons and Catholics and Adians — who suffered through such a childhood 40 or 50 years ago never called a press conference, never demanded ‘reparations,’ never went to the press with demands, never just sat on their asses and complained. They just determined to work even harder to succeed and learned to fight. Mr. Wright, you are a poisonous embarrassment to the United States and to black America. That Mr. Obama refuses to call you for what you are and continues to seek your support should be all that a voter needs to know this November.

He not only “refuses to call him for what he is,” but he gives him thousands of dollars (while Michelle whines about what a terrible world it is in which she has to pay back her loans that got her through the Ivy League and into her multi-hundred-thousand-dollar job), and he takes his young children to church on Sundays to poison their minds with this America hatred.

I can understand why the Clinton campaign is so furious with the media, when they could have been reporting this stuff months ago. On the other hand, I have no sympathy, since Bill Clinton could never have gotten elected without similarly fawning and myopic press coverage. If I were a Democrat, I would be very, very concerned about what’s going to happen this summer and fall. And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving political party.