Hillary Clinton ´Concedes´, Sorta

The time and place had been set - high noon at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, in an ornate and rather pompous setting. Hillary Clinton had finally come to grips, albeit in a delayed reaction, with the fact that she did, in fact, lose the Democratic primary nomination to Barack Obama and had agreed to endorse her opponent today, Saturday, June 7th.

As usual with the Clinton´s, she was fashionably and habitually late. Having agreed to 12 o´clock as the witching hour, she customarily failed to show on time. Typical rude Clinton behavior. While the nation awaited the speech which perhaps should have been delivered Tuesday night, Hillary dilly - dallied at her home in Washington keeping the world at bay for a little longer.

There was much consternation on Tuesday evening, June 3rd, when Hillary gave a speech which neither formally recognized nor enthusiastically endorsed Barack Obama as she basically spoke of her accomplishments and expectations rather than show a modicum of ´good sportsmanship´ by recognizing the historical significance of the fact that Barack had indeed crossed the finish line ahead of her. By the tone of that speech, one would even have thought that she had accomplished her own goal of being the nominee. It was an embarrassingly Clinton moment which seriously disrespected the true winner, Barack Obama, on a night when the attention should have been on him and not the also - ran. She neither conceded nor did she recognize that the race was over. Instead she claimed, directly or by innuendo, that she had accumulated more popular votes and more states which will play in November in the general election. Hardly the speech of a loser. In fact, Terry McAuliffe, her primo lackey, announced her as ´the next President of the United States´. (If there is one positive outcome of this election season, it is that we will no longer have to bear the brutality of the unconscionable bloviating of that individual!)

After several days of speculation where the indomitable Hillary left her intentions to conjecture, drove the press nuts, and angered her top supporters including Rep. Charlie Rangel (NY) and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell. The word is that prominent Congressional persons got her attention about on Thursday when they basically read her the riot act and prevailed on her to take the necessary action of ending the divisive nature of her holdout and formally endorse Barack. She acquiesced and agreed, finally, on Saturday as the moment of surrender - sorta.

Forty five minutes late, she appeared on stage to begin what must have been one of the most painful ordeals of her life. She began her speech with a list of seeming self - praise about her own accomplishments. It was more than six minutes before she even mentioned the nominee, Barack Obama. Even then she mentioned that she was merely ´suspending´ her campaign while endorsing her rival. In fairness, once she did mention Barack she did so with some enthusiasm and somewhat sincerely. (That must have hurt her to the quick.)

The speech lasted about 30 minutes, and contained some of the obligatory schmoozing of Obama and, of course, the required ´endorsement´. It was not particularly rousing nor exceptionally notable. It was more about her in a self - serving manner than about losing to Obama and vowing to support him unconditionally. When she claimed that we must elect Barack Obama to the White House, I was not particularly convinced of her heart really being into that premise. She spoke more of what women have done and will do in the future than what she will do to get Obama elected, more of her own campaign than his, more of her future political intentions than her selfless intent to elect Barack, more self - congratulating than submissive in defeat.

In this speech, Hillary was not especially supportive of her rival, not especially fervent in her endorsement, and certainly not especially convincing in her humility. Now the pundits and pontificators will analyze her words to the nth degree. There will be the supporters and the detractors. Some will question her intentions and claim her to not have gone far enough; others will rave about her having accomplished what was needed however tardy in her doing so. Whatever the case, she clearly has held her options open for the future and for perhaps another run at the brass ring should Barack Obama fail in his own quest. You get the idea we have not yet heard the last from Hillary Clinton. However, let´s move on.