Now that polls are tightening, the internet has exploded with amateur campaign experts to explain why Hillary's sunk, what she should have done, how she should behave. They rightly note that this has happened before - but not just 2008. In 1992, in 1996, in 2000, in July of last year and again in October. Deconstructing Hillary is a cottage industry that's made many rich. Trump draws crowds by saying outrageous things, Sanders draws crowds by stirring outrage, Hillary on her own is simple outrageous. Hillary s always failing, except when she isn't, in which case she's on the verge of starting to fail.

The NY Times' front page assertion that Hillary "underestimated Sanders" and would be better off facing Joe Biden is especially humorous. The Times of course launched the failed Joe Biden entry into the race with the morose bedside pleadings of Biden's son as related by the Times' resident Hillary hater, Maureen Dowd. Using the Saintly Joe as the foil for the anti-Hillary movement, the story's become how Hillary is too establishment, too beholden to Wall Street, without morals - and that either Joe or Elizabeth Warren Benie Sanders were rightful heirs to the prog movement. Of course Biden and Sanders are quite the opposites except for relative lack of wealth. Biden voted the same way as most Democrat leaders & everyone else on Iraq AUMF/inspections while Bernie voted against. Biden's in the pocket of Delaware's huge insurance business, Sanders is relatively unbeholden to large interests thanks to Vermont's backwater status. Biden's main accomplishment as VP was to go behind Harry Reid's back to strike a deal with the GOP - one guesses that Sanders wouldn't play such a creep. Still, in the year of false equivalents, the Times and others pushed their anyone-but-Hillary message. To temporary success - by October, the Draft Joe movement was gaining ground, Hillary's poll numbers were falling (again), and the "just give up" crowd was beginning to crow.

But there was more to the story. Hillary's entire email trove from Secretary State years was being opened up for scrutiny thanks to yet another round of Benghazi hype. The Times announced Hillary was under FBI investigation, only to walk it back a couple days later after the damage was done. And the Republicans were regularly pummeling Hillary as the only Democrat worth pummeling.

Everybody waited for HIllary to react. Or overreact. Or just quit. Even mild comments like "when women talk men think they're screaming" was taken as a below-the-belt blow against the gentile Vermonter, reminiscent of the fury over fairly anodyne comments in the 2008 race. One can only imagine if Hillary had actually spoken out against sad St. Joe, instead of letting him have his treacherous out-in-public grieving space.

And instead, the Benghazi hearings came, and the next debate, and suddenly the poll dive was over, Biden had opted out, the Sanders threat seemed far less worrisome, the GOP field was shuffling with their bigger worry that Trump's bubble wouldn't pop, while Trump's attacks on her started looking like the most brutish indefensible misogyny. Suddenly Hillary was in control, if not Montgomery in Africa, at least a survivor. Backers were breathing a sigh of relief. Only 3 months is a long time.

The Sanders side kept griping about the lack of debates, that DNC favoritism, even though Hillary was gaining traction with each one. The next story became DataGate in which the firewall between candidate data access came down, & Sanders' side got caught with their hand in the data till - only to deftly blame it all on Hillary and the DNC, some Svengali-like manipulators behind the scenes. Sanders' apology on the back end turned into another grievance to raise his fan base's ire, and the deep conspiracy phase of the campaign began. Sanders' side had already perfected victimhood along with the art of selective framing - any political or union endorsement Sanders received was pure and earnest while Hillary's much larger ones were overstated, overbearing and manipulative. Sanders' donors were the right ones; Hillary's were all corrupt monied interests. Anyone who's read Goofus and Gallant knows the routine, yet it's surprisingly effective.

The Washington Post stepped into the good times cycle with a front page article on how the Clintons have raised $3 billion over the years, mixing in both partners and decades of political and charity figures, spiced liberally with deep insinuation of crony favoritism and illegal activity. More retreads of "how Hillary's in the pocket of Wall Street" stories appeared. Rumors of Sanders' impending advantage in Q4 fundraising popped up (even though the year end's final tally showed him quite behind, as well as HIllary saving her money better than 2008 - never mind - with the New Year's passing, Sanders' expected advantage became Hillary's ho-hum win).

To greet the New Year, Joe Biden rewarded Hillary's time and service with the Obama Administration and her kid gloves' approach with him as he debated his swan song, this time with a long CNN interview explaining how Hillary's not the right person for the job, too indebted to the kind of monied corporate yobs only he would understand so well, and that Sanders is the true prince ascendant. Well, none too surprising - Joe's always had that self-satisfied smarmy look, and while his accomplishments are fairly mediocre, he has that legend of doing-it-for-his-kids and surviving-his-grief to give him that stature to say pretty much anything, and in this case, he got his last chance to somehow influence events.

Meanwhile, the NY Times resorted to what it does best - digging up the yesteryear of the Clintons. In this case, the Editorial page threw up an indictment of Hillary accusing her of character assassination and behind the scenes intrigue against Bill's rape and sexual harassment victims, somehow in the guise of telling Trump his attacks on Hillary had gone too far and these jabs were yesterday's news. It was a pro job - stabbing someone while getting someone else to hold the knife - something that makes us appreciate the role of traditional media in our corrupt system, as exemplified by the guys who funneled doctored data on Iraq onto their front page to drag us into war and then expressed outrage at the results and blamed politicians for not knowing better.

So here's Hillary, being told again by the Old Grey Lady (run largely by men) how she should have run her campaign - sharper elbows (but don't beat up on Joe, he's in distress), stronger attacks (but Sanders doesn't attack, so don't do that), tell us more what you're for (and then we'll publish a story about emails or Monica to drown out your economic platform or plan to remove the Hatch Act or lower the influence of guns). Meanwhile, the overall media coverage is all about polls and scandals, seldom about policy. Donald Trump can put out a crazy budget spending $10 trillion in the red, and the Times can't be bothered reporting it. But have him say "schlong" or say something horrid about HIllary, and it's front page news again, and seldom in a good way.

Guys, with Hints like these, who needs Frenemies?

[closure: I was going to discuss the polls, and the 538 analysis and the longer contest than just Iowa and New Hampshire, but at this point lethargy's creeping in. If the Democrats want to elect another populist sloganeer based on a "fairy tale", whether it's getting out of Iraq, taming Wall Street, rebuilding manufacturing, bringing conservatives to their knees or single payer universal healthcare, go for it. I've seen that movie, and it still sucks. The only actual comment to the TImes article that gave me pause was that Bernie has tons of signs everywhere while HIllary has basically none - inexcusable groundwork for a campaign with lots of money, but then again probably not that surprising with a state that's 1/3 independent and intent on making itself heard, typically in a contrary king-maker fashion.]

[update: oh bother - I guess now asking a candidate to release his/her medical records or a health pass like everyone else did - Reagan, McCain, Trump, Clinton, Eagleton? - is now an "attack" , as is asking for more details of an extensive health plan. - haven't we already lost Bowie (69), Alan Rickman (69) & Lemmy Motorhead (70) this year? As Oxy implies, modern campaigns should just blather out generalizations, suspend disbelief and we'll sort it out later. Not.]