I watched Hillary's concession speech, and her endorsement of Obama as their party's presidential nominee, on CNN, Saturday evening. She should have endorsed him sooner, though. I think the "long" delay has done only damage to the already shaken Clinton legacy. Still, I was impressed by the historicity of the moment, and by her no less historic delivery. I felt admiration for her dry, dry-eyed and inner strength -- in contrast to the all-red (all out) Bill. And I felt genuinely sorry for her, wondering why she should not try again in 2016.
She has moved closer to having an important role in the coming Obama administration -- and it is surely coming. As I have pointed out in my blog, however, there are great risks to her being Obama's running mate. Not in 2008 -- perhaps in 2012, should there be an opening.
I think the first female President of the US will most likely be one who has shattered, really shattered, the glass ceiling into more than 18 million pieces all on her own -- to the much debatable extent that heroes do these things alone -- and not, as was tragically Hillary's unsolicited and inescapable fate, essentially on the back of her husband's record (as a two-term US President!). But by 2016 Hillary (who's healthy enough, it seems to me) will most certainly have "atoned" (with extended duty and absence from the highest table)for her easy path to the 2008 campaign, as a former First Lady, and may be that female who at last shatters what now remains only, though so enticingly, cracked.
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