Well, that answered that.
For a few days the speculation raged. Is Hillary Clinton subtly, uncharacteristically preparing for a gracious exit, in view of the mathematically insurmountable obstacles she faces in seizing the nomination?
Or is she merely lying momentarily low, scanning the horizon for opposing vulnerabilities, quietly forging a desperate, final offensive that will mirror the futility of the Old South's "Lost Cause" and litter the landscape with about as much needless carnage.
As of yesterday afternoon, there were competing, page-one headlines in the New York Times and Washington Post that first reflected and then answered the speculation: respectively, "Somber Clinton Soldiers On as the Horizon Darkens"; then, "Clinton Unloads on Obama's 'Destructive' Tactics."
There they stood, those newsy twin pillars of Hillary's political schizophrenia -- one, softly suggesting a resigned and somber wisdom; the other, harshly responding with theatrical and kamikaze destructiveness.
The charitable assessment of Hillary's press conference performance in Cincinnati yesterday is that she simply snapped and went 'round the bend. If you've seen the video of it, and I'm sure you have, you suspect that the psychiatrically trained among the spectators were shifting nervously in their seats, wondering if she was about to go the last full measure of clinical rage and start blasting.
She possessed an eerie, otherworldly look that screamed for the fictional and expository talents of a Norman Mailer. Here, one could nearly conclude, is a politician all used up, emotionally and dangerously unraveling right on stage.
But, of course, it was all just a stunt.
Her "outrage" was just an uncommonly theatrical confirmation of the cold, political calculation rap that she and her campaign staff once struggled to overcome, but finally and publicly conceded in spades. It was a meticulously orchestrated and pre-scripted show -- a last-ditch, last-minute explosion of feigned fury over what was, after all, the politically commonplace.
The "false and discredited mailings" from Obama's camp that Hillary pretended to have just discovered are, in fact, weeks old. The Clinton camp has been chronically aware of them, so Hillary's seemingly sudden and striking indignation was patently laughable.
At the core of her orchestration, however, weren't the mailings at all; neither their veracity or discreditability. The point, rather, was to discredit Obama's character, harking back to and intensifying the groundwork she had already strained to lay about Obama's fitness as chief executive. It was, that is, just as she accused Obama -- something right out of Karl Rove's playbook, with a little Swift Boating to boot, and it positively dripped with irrational venom.
He says one thing in his speeches and then he turns around and does this. It is not the new politics the speeches are about. It is not hopeful. It is destructive. Shame on you, Barack Obama. It is time you ran a campaign consistent with your messages in public. That's not what I expect from you. Meet me in Ohio -- let's have a debate about your tactics. Enough about the speeches, and the big rallies, and then using tactics right out of Karl Rove's playbook.
This is wrong and every Democrat should be outraged.
And with those nine final words, she finally said something of meritorious truth.
If Hillary's campaign still had any realistic shot at capturing the nomination, perhaps her accelerated malice could be accepted as spirited, hardball inventiveness, however over the top it might be. But it has no such shot. Her campaign is not merely dying; it is dead. Hence her recent words were not merely over the top -- they confirmed, instead, merely that the contest is over, but she has no intention of going down alone.
No candidate at this hopeless, pointless stage in what you might call his or her right mind would launch such a party-splitting, nerve-shattering attack. It was "wrong." It was "shameful." It was "destructive." It played right into the GOP's hands, and every Democrat should indeed be outraged.
But about every Democrat, Hillary is thinking not one minute. She is thinking about only one. She has lost all human perspective, engulfed as she is in a narcissistic, entitled rage. If Democrats won't have her, then the country -- which earlier this week she still mawkishly prayed would "be fine ... no matter what happens" -- won't have any Democrat in the White House come 2009. So she'd be primed for an earlier run in 2012, not 2016.
Hillary Clinton is now less a tragic figure right out of Karl Rove's playbook than straight out of Shakespeare. She's willing to sell the fate of an entire nation down the road, so that someday, sooner, she may be queen.
And if you reject the Shakespeare metaphor, perhaps Ann Rice? Please, somebody grab a wooden stake.