It's almost embarrasing to watch

At the end of the CNN debate, Senator Clinton had the crowd on their feet and even some of her louder detractors (yours truly included) wondering if maybe they'd been a bit harsh.

Things began to decline from there. Later that evening it got out that her moment in the sun was formed of two lines from other presidential campaigns; one from John Edwards and another from her husband.

Not that there's anything wrong with that

Except that she'd minutes ago accused Obama of plagarizing Deval Patrick, his friend and one of his national campaign chairs, calling it "Change you can Xerox," and saying that "If your campaign is going to be based on words, they should be your words."

And now, her last vestiges of sanity are slipping away in correlation to the decline to her advantage in Texas and Ohio. The latter was cut in half. The former is swinging towards Obama.

She's called Obama's mailer warning voters that her healthcare plan would force everyone to buy insurance the stuff of Rove. Too bad they describe the central premise of your plan, eh Hillary? Certainly more truthful than the assertion that 15 million people would be "left behind" by Obama's plan. And she trashed him similarly for citing a misquotation in another mailer (that wasn't corrected by its source publication until after it was already sent out) that she thought NAFTA was a "boon to the economy" because she didn't use those EXACT words. There is, of course, plenty of evidence that she supported and continued to support NAFTA until recently.

And then she went and claimed that there was some significance to the love-fest that SNL (a side note... They had a white guy portraying Obama. Blackface much? Ok, not much but still) had for her in their first show since the end of the writers strike.

a clip:



So, I'm not going to be one of those assholes who tries to claim that more significant denigration of women is perpetrated by women than men, but I must say, even if I were trying I wouldn't be able to do as much damage as Tina Fey there. First she mocks the notion that a discerning feminist could support Obama in good conscience--that to not blindly vote for Hillary as a woman is to be blindly following Oprah-- then proceeds to make no other argument in Clinton's favor not related to her gender or her husband.

Oh right, and I almost forgot.

IT ISN'T FUCKING FUNNY AT ALL!

And I don't want to trash Tina Fey, because all in all, I do like her. She's hardly the only one framing things this way.

Attention voters! This election is not about gender politics! Clinton's possession of a vagina does not disqualify her from the office, nor does it obligate anyone to vote for her. And while some of the people who refer to her as a bitch probably are doing so because she's a woman with ambition, and as politically incorrect as it is to apply the title to her she's earned it

Moreover, having a female president for the first time would be significantly less nifty if it was someone who was only ever considered for the job because of her husband.

And it would be even less cool if she happened to be a distasteful hypocrite.

So to those who are offering no other argument for Clinton than her being a woman, and there are many: If you wouldn't otherwise have her represent your party, why the hell would you have her represent your gender?