The Lost Art of Taking One For The Team

The Ones Who Show Up
Drunks at the Wheel
The Silence of The Hams
Taking one For The team


Until you're ready to look foolish, you'll never have the possibility of being great.
Cher


A few weeks ago, the Democrats had a “Clinton Problem”.

The American media is like a mad party bus driven by a whiskey crazed deaf-mute. This half-drunk chauffeur, who leads public perception, had swerved slowly into incoming traffic since the beginning of this primary cycle. Hillary was in the headlights coming the other way. There has been a great sudden lurching now, drinks have been spilled, celebratory song has been interrupted. As is so often the case, history is being made while assumptive victors are weakend by their own vanity.

Until just a week or so ago, it was obvious that Hillary had a choice between smashing her political career, head-on into the Obama-hypno-media bus, or doing everyone the favor of withdrawing and thus plowing her own wagon off the road, into the dark snowy forest beyond the headlines. Guess who decided to stand her ground?

Recently, the media woke up to something critical: There may be some truth to Clinton’s ongoing complaints that Obama is just a glorified “idea man”, without any meaningful experiential education in matters of delicate politics and forceful moves. The Clinton campaign has, by chance or by design, forced Democrats and the media to test Obama’s personal (not his team’s) abilities under fire. He appears to be hiding behind the sandbags of his 100 delegate lead.

THE MATH is important, and Obama is not counting. Hillary knows she cannot win the delegates required to secure the nomination. Everyone has known this since last month. In seeking a path to victory she has realized the greater truth of this situation. As long as she is campaigning hard for her predictable 45 – 55% of the primary voters, Obama might not secure enough delegates to win either.

In the fog of this recent battle, Clinton herself responded to her flagging campaign’s direction. SHE seized the Message and by doing so SHE seized the media as well. She is risen, as they say, to challenge Obama directly for control of the contest. She is challenging Obama by being more Presidential than he is: She is suddenly more sophisticated, more aggressive, more effective and far more willing to accept strategic defeats towards a tactical victory.

What no one knows how to admit yet, is that Hillary is the only Democrat with a solution to the self-destructive end game of this locked primary. She has tried to offer it up as delicately and as professionally as any President has ever offered any international or domestic political deal in history. The Obama camp, by it’s silence and non-response, has failed to show that the big man can stand alone and above his staff of adulators, to be a decider under fire.

Sure, the background is full of the sound of breaking glass and crunching metal. The drunk chauffeur called “the media” has started to wail in ecstatic embrace of it’s own deconstructive ability. But battles are loud by nature. The great leaders separate the giant sounds from the little pieces of iron flying around. Hillary is on the battlefield herself now. Like so much of Hal Moore in the Ira Drang, Hillary has moved beyond that awful emotional inconvenience of being surrounded and outnumbered by a robust enemy. She is commanding her forces.

Obama is deep in his bunker. He seems resigned to that uninspired tradition of depending on repeated tactical assaults, with no strategic endgame vision. He has to close the deal now in order to achieve true victory. Hillary is giving him a choice, as clear and obvious as the sky is blue:

COMMIT TO MAKING ME YOUR VICE PRESIDENT OR I WILL SACRIFICE MY CAREER TO DESTROY YOUR ADVANTAGE OVER McCAIN!


The pressure Obama faces now, is nothing compared to the shrug-off treatment Hillary received during November, December and January. Still, he is running out of time to emerge from his eroding shelter and make a deal to be the Strategic Victor. Sure, he wants to make Napolitano as his VP. She is smarter and a better leader than either Obama or Hillary after all. But this contest might result in another white male POTUS unless someone takes one for The Team, and soon.

It is time for someone to show some metal. Maybe Janet has to step forward and throw herself on the line by convincing Obama to agree to Hillary’s childishly obvious but as yet unheard offer. Hillary has decided the battle: Make me your confirmed VPOTUS now or we are all going to get wiped out

A supposedly great leader as Barack Obama shouldn't need his underlings to sell him on this tough but obvious decision. It is so simple an (ex) Cowboy can figure it out. The truth is, if he is half the man he claims to be with his MLK borrowed rhetoric, he MUST prove it by standing above his staff’s reluctance to concede anything to Hillary. And if Janet figures this out soon enough, she can thrust herself into a favorable national presence by being the one who makes the deal work.

The Democrats suddenly have an "Obama Problem". Janet N. might be the only one who can resolve it. Obama himself doesn't seem to understand it.


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