Readers of this space (and God bless you, each and every one) know by now - really, should have known long, long ago - that I have believed with unshakeable conviction ever since Bill Clinton rode off into the sunset seven years, four months, and twelve days ago that his wife, the Wicked Witch of the West Wing, the Queen of Mean, the Empress, the Woman With The Upside-Down Legs, and the biggest beer-swiller this side of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Hillary Rodham Clinton, would be the next president of the United States.

The reasons were legion: she wanted it, everybody in the Democrat Party KNEW she wanted it, everybody in the Democrat Party knew WHY she wanted it, everybody in the Democrat Party knew HOW MUCH she wanted it, and since the Democrat Party still belonged to La Clinton Nostra lock, stock, and French tickler, everybody knew to not get in her way.

Except, as it turned out, Barack Hussein Obama.  But he was such a rube, despite his charisma, personal magnetism, and rich mahogany goodness, that the Clinton Machine would chew him up in no time and stick the remains in the veep slot where he belonged so as to make Mrs. Clinton the double-maker of “history” in ensuring that no white European male would occupy the post of Leader of the Free World for the next decade and a half.

Her coronational processional was the conventional wisdom up until the Donk primary season began, and BO didn’t get out of her way, but actually took a small delegate lead and held it ever since.  This has not shaken my belief that Hillary would, nevertheless, capture the nomination and go back to the White House.  I lived through the ’90s; I watched La Clinton Nostra in action; how they never made a mistake; how they were always several steps ahead; how they survived swarms of scandals any one of which would have been enough to torpedo any of their predecessors; and how they effortlessly ran rings around their clumsy, hapless GOP opponents at Election time and all the calendar pages in-between.

The Clintons do….not….lose.  EVER.  PERIOD.

Or, to quote the recently retired “Nature Boy” Ric Flair, “To be the man, you gotta beat the man.”  Nobody has beaten the Clinton Machine in twenty-eight years.  You just don’t bet against that level of unbroken success.  By hook or by crook (by both, really), no matter what the pledged delegate count was, no matter what “It’s over!” rumors were floating around, enough superdelegates would be “reminded” of where their “best interests” lay that the junior senator from New York would get what she wanted.  I had seen nothing yet to persuade me otherwise.

Until now:

After hours of emotional testimony and sometimes contentious debate, Democratic Party officials agreed yesterday on a pair of compromises to seat Florida’s and Michigan’s delegations to their national convention. But a part of the deal drew an angry reaction and the threat of a subsequent challenge from the campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The compromises by the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee called for both delegations, originally barred from the convention for violating party rules, to be seated in full in Denver but with each delegate casting only half a vote.

The actions by the committee were aimed at bringing the long and sometimes-bitter Democratic nomination battle between Senator Barack Obama (IL) and Clinton (NY) to a close and to ensure party unity as the Democrats head into the general election. But the decisions prompted bitter and sometimes-tearful reactions from some members of the audience, who repeatedly shouted over the committee members as they voted….

One of the things I have maintained is that Hillary’s Clintonoid clout would ensure that the full Michigan and Florida delegations would be seated with full voting power.  Sure, those two swing states violated the DNC’s primary scheduling rules, and Mrs. Clinton left her name on the ballot in Michigan after the other candidates withdrew theirs, but that wouldn’t matter, because she wouldn’t even have to remind Donk poobahs whose party it still was.  The notion of shutting out both, or even a half-assed “compromise,” simply was not going to happen.

Imagine my astonishment.  I don’t know whether to call this ingratitude, or an uprising, or a coup, but the DNC has done the unthinkable: they’ve crossed the Boss.

And even given La Clinton Nostra a taste of its own thieving medicine:

But it was the Michigan plan, approved by a 19-8 vote, that drew sharper opposition because of the way that state’s delegates will be awarded. Under the plan, Clinton will be given 34.5 delegate votes in Denver to Obama’s 29.5 delegate votes, a percentage distribution recommended by leaders of the Michigan Democratic Party but opposed by the Clinton campaign officials, who said it violates the results of Michigan’s January 15 primary.

“This motion will hijack - hijack - remove four delegates won by Hillary Clinton,” said Harold Ickes, who oversees delegate operations for the Clinton campaign and is also a member of the Rules and Bylaws Committee. “This body of thirty individuals has decided that they’re going to substitute their judgment for 600,000 voters.”

Arguing that the Michigan compromise “is not a good way to start down the path of party unity,” Ickes warned that Clinton had authorized him to note that she will “reserve her rights to take it to the credentials committee” later. Campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson later affirmed that Clinton will reserve her right to challenge the outcome.

Hillary Clinton, in plain, non-Vulcan English - and in her entitlement-addled mind - is getting screwed.  “For the good of the party,” of course.  I suppose I should be laughing until I puke, and if my party had actually nominated, you know, a Republican instead of Benedict McCain, I probably would be.

I’m not sure what this means for the rest of the campaign.  The Dem establishment has now officially closed ranks behind False Messiah.  Without the full seating of Michigan and Florida, Mrs. Clinton probably can’t get the nomination, even as her superior-electability arguments gain more and more  and more heft.  However, on the other hand, this compromise raises the nomination-clinching threshold by ninety-two delegates, placing it out of Obama’s reach in the last three nominating contests (Puerto Rico, Montana, and South Dakota), and making him dependent on tipping enough superdupers his way to get over the top.

Yes, he’ll be closer than she is.  This DNC compromise is probably indicative of the difficulty she’ll have in turning the superduper tide.  But if hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, God only knows the wrath that a jilted Hillary Clinton - and her First Gigolo wannabe husband - can wreak on the party that rejected her and its gaffe-a-minute naif of a candidate.  Double-H sums it up succinctly:

What will fascinate is his and Hillary’s conduct between now and November.  Will he and she undermine the already troubled Obama candidacy, having concluded that four years of McCain and a return to the White House in 2013 is to be preferred to eclipse at the hands of a rookie and his band of radical friends and backers?

That, gentlebeings, is the grand bull moose gold medal winner of rhetorical questions.

I have also been rigidly skeptical of all this “Obamanationals will defect to McCain if Hillary wins” and vice versa nonsense.  There’s simply no way, with total power within their grasp, that Democrats would take ANY chance on losing a third straight presidential election, no matter how self-destructive the GOP has become.

I still think that in the event of a Hillary victory.  But if Obama goes over?  In THESE circumstances?  With the party that cannot forget Florida 2K turning those very same imagined tactics on La Clinton Nostra for real, with a sprinkling of Dred Scott-ism (Michiganders and Floridians as half-delegates) for good measure?  I think you have to figure all THOSE bets are off.

The third article of certitude I have stood by throughout this campaign to date is that John Sith McCain has a better chance of making the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team than he does capturing the presidency.  In a cycle as anti-GOP as this one, with Level-5 force hurricane winds at the Democrats’ backs, and THE notorious RINO usurper as the incumbent party’s standardbearer, the question isn’t whether Darth Queeg is going to lose, but whether he can beat Goldwater and McGovern for biggest margin of defeat.

But with La Clinton Nostra on his side to do the heavy-lifting dirty work Senator “Comity” won’t touch?  Heck, who knows?

All I do know is when I attached the slogan “Don’t let it happen again” to my “Blogs Against Hillary” banner, this isn’t quite what I had in mind.

But either way, one immutable constant remains: no matter how you rearrange the deckchairs, the Titanic is still going to the bottom.

And we conservatives are riding third class.

[cross-posted at ]