She won't go easy

We are locked at the hip to Hillary Clinton, who won't stop her manic tarantella until her party whirls into ruins.

"She Came to Stay." That was the American title of Simone de Beauvoir's first book, a 1943 roman à clef about a manipulative and self-absorbed young woman who saps the energy and willpower of her admirers and plunges them into the existential abyss.

As a candidate running a close second, Hillary would normally have every right to complete the primary process, which runs into early June. Calls for her to drop out of the race began months ago and were certainly premature. But at this point, even with strong wins in Appalachia, Hillary has no true rationale for her candidacy, other than her inflamed gender and her putative Washington "experience" -- which has yet to produce a tangible legislative achievement. Her persistence is now keyed to her hope (chillingly close to a curse) that her rival will make a major gaffe or be besmirched by some unknown past scandal. And her message maliciously undermines the presumptive nominee by targeting his presumed weakness in the general election.

Many commentators and Democratic functionaries are prophesying Hillary's graceful withdrawal by mid-June. Is there anything in the Clintons' tawdry history to support such a thesis? Why wouldn't they play smiley-face rope-a-dope now and smash-mouth alley-and-ambush fisticuffs right to the bitter end -- meaning the convention in August? It's now or never for Ms. Hill.

Republican operatives have been salivating for Hillary to be the nominee. Her vainglorious claim to have been fully "vetted" is ludicrous. She and her husband left a mountain of manure in Little Rock and Washington that hasn't even begun to be thrown. The mainstream media, despite its tilt toward Obama, has been amazingly protective of the Clintons during this campaign. Where were the chronologies of the voluminous Clinton scandals that voters (especially young ones) needed to evaluate Hillary's professional judgment and character? That the conservative Washington Times has now begun to make document drops about Hillary's stonewalling and duplicity (such as over the Rose Law Firm billing records) suggests that Republicans have concluded her candidacy is kaput.

Obama is the right person at the right time for the presidency. Where Hillary divides and sows bitterness, Obama wants to unite and heal. It is a project that all Americans of good will should wish to succeed.

Meanwhile, Hillary's flying of the feminist flag has become much more ostentatious as her campaign wanes. Sexism will inevitably be the lurid postmortem apologia for why she failed to break the ultimate glass ceiling. Never mind her faults, limitations and dizzy-making multiple personality disorder as a candidate -- or her depressingly unfeminist professional attachment to an alpha male who may be the real reason she won the votes of many working-class white men.

Hillary has certainly given a blast of artificial resuscitation to male-bashing paleo-feminism, which is back with a vengeance. The blogosphere is awash with accusations of "traitor" against women who have the temerity to vote for Obama.