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"She said the words, but she didn't endorse Obama."

I nearly got my head bitten off for suggesting as much myself, but now I see that I'm not the only one. That quote is from Rush Limbaugh, said on Monday's show:

... [W]hen Mrs. Clinton was talking about herself, she was radiant, buoyant. She was gesticulating. She was smiling. When it came time to mention, not endorse, mention Obama, she read. There was no gesticulation. There was no animation. There weren't any smiles. A couple of smiles here and there, sort of like a McCain teleprompter smile it didn't fit when she did it.

A McCain teleprompter smile... ha ha... so that's why he bursts into those odd smiles when he does?

[I]n that audience we had true believers. She mentioned Obama's name 15 times. She knew that every time she mentioned Obama's name because of the nature of that crowd that there were going to be people in there that would boo, and there were. And the boos were even audible to me and I am deaf.

Please don't think someone else is writing Rush's monologues!

Now, if you are Mrs. Clinton and you are serious about unifying the party and bringing the party together and you know that your crowd's not happy about what you're going to do, that you're going to quit and they don't like Obama, you only mention his name once or twice, not 15 times. She gave that crowd 15 opportunities to boo Barak Obama. And they did.

So saying his name a lot is the secret code that she's not really quitting?

I'm sitting there watching this and there's simply no way that this was a genuine -- she said the words, but she's looking down as she reads them, and then looks up at the audience in sort of a joker kind of smile kind of permanently on the face, an inanimate smile. I was watching this, and I'm listening to the Drive-Bys, particularly on NBC, and they're just having orgasms. "Oh, this is great, this is wonderful. The party is coming together," and all of this and all of that. And I'm saying, "You guys are so blind and so susceptible to the conventional wisdom. We're talking about a Clinton here. The Clintons don't go away." You'd have to show them a cross at sunup two inches from their eyes and even then they wouldn't go away....

She didn't release her delegates. Hold onto them, hells bells. And she can go out and she can raise money. She has to retire her debt and so forth. She can do that up till the convention. She held on to her delegates, meaning if Obama slips and falls....

I do think he's right. She's in sleep mode and can be reactivated the moment Obama slips too far. The Clintons are watching and waiting.

The last paragraph of a famous book sprang to my mind:

And, indeed, as he listened to the cries of joy rising from the town, Rieux remembered that such joy is always imperiled. He knew what those jubilant crowds did not know but could have learned from books: that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen-chests; that it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks, and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men, it would rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city.

(Albert Camus, The Plague.)

Full post as published by Althouse on June 10, 2008 (boomark / email).