The nomination deal

My gut reaction is that given where we are, it's a good thing that Hillary Clinton's name will be placed into nomination at the convention. I'm certainly not surprised by the news, and I'd be shocked if she didn't withdraw her name at some point early in the voting, perhaps before it even begins.

It will increase attention on the convention and makes Barack Obama seem both magnanimous and confident. Hillary knows that she cannot win the nomination, and I trust that Obama will not agree to anything that will allow her to diminish him.

Obviously, in an ideal world, things wouldn't have come to this. But it's a logical way of dealing the reality of the negative fallout from Hillary Clinton's bad decision to continue her campaign long after she lost any realistic chance of winning.

For better or for worse (mostly the latter), she gained some political clout during that time, and if this is the way that she wants to cash in her chips, that's fine with me.

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At the same time, no matter how vociferously she campaigns for Barack Obama at this point, it does make me a bit nauseous to hear folks give her great credit for not having followed Mark Penn's un-American advice during the primary.

Yes, it's true that she didn't pursue his plans initially. But there's a reason for that: even if she had succeeded in destroying Obama, a candidate like Edwards or Richardson or someone else would have been the beneficiary -- not her.

And once the campaign did become a heads up affair, she quickly started executing Penn's strategy, starting with her infamous editorial board with Richard Mellon Scaife.

And let us not forget her response to bitter-cling:

YouTube link

That was Mark Penn's advice, applied perfectly.

But that all being said, we're at where we're at. It's a political campaign, and the goal is to win. And giving Hillary Clinton her moment is a smart thing to do.

But let's not forget what kind of campaign she ultimately ran.