The last Morning Jolt of the week offers minute-by-minute progression of Romney/RNC rapid response, Bully-gate, and one of my favorite figures in politics getting a long look as a Romney running mate . . . and then this intriguing allegation:

The Alleged Hillary Primary Challenge That Almost Happened

Did this really happen? Easy to believe, at any rate . . .

Bill Clinton thought so little of President Obama — mocking him as an “amateur” — that he pressed his wife last summer to quit her job as secretary of state and challenge him in the primaries, a new book claims,

“The country needs you!” the former president told Hillary Clinton, urging her to run this year, according to accounts of the conversation included in Edward Klein’s new biography of Obama.

The title of Klein’s explosive, unauthorized bio of Obama, The Amateur (Regnery Publishing), was taken directly from Bill Clinton’s bombshell criticism of the president, the author said.

Mister President, it’s not too late to endorse Keith Judd.

President Obama, shortly after announcing the killing of Osama bin Laden: “America doesn’t need to trot this stuff out as trophies . . . We don’t need to spike the football.”

Apparently he meant, “we don’t need to spike the football until 2012.”

It’s really good news that President Obama authorized the strike in Pakistan. In a culture such as ours, he’s entitled to take a victory lap. But it’s rather striking that the president’s campaign would take this tack when four years ago, Obama was hitting Hillary Clinton for “invoking Osama bin Laden to make political points.”

Then again, what is Obama going to tout about his record? The joys of 8.2 percent unemployment and 2.2 percent GDP growth?

Poor Hillary Clinton. More than three years later, her campaign is still rattling the tin cup for donations. Arriving in my e-mail box this morning:

Together, we made history in the last presidential election.

From Hillary’s speech at the Democratic National Convention, to the work and support that each of us brought to the campaign, that story lives on — in the history books, in our memories, and in the mementos that commemorate that time.

Now, those mementos are disappearing as your fellow supporters claim the last of them.

We only have a few official campaign posters, buttons and t-shirts left. We’re running out of the DVDs with Hillary’s historic speech at the 2008 Denver convention, the inspiring video that introduced her, and President Clinton’s speech — some of which are signed by President Clinton himself.

Once these last items are gone, they’re gone forever.

I hate to tell them this, but you can watch the speech on YouTube.

Most Democrats scoff at claims of election fraud.

They shouldn’t:

The signatures of dozens, if not hundreds, of northern Indiana residents were faked on petitions used to place presidential candidates on the state primary ballot in 2008, The Tribune and Howey Politics Indiana have revealed in an investigation.

Several pages from petitions used to qualify Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the state’s Democratic primary contain names and signatures that appear to have been copied by hand from a petition for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jim Schellinger. The petitions were filed with the Indiana Election Division after the St. Joseph County Voter Registration Office verified individuals’ information on the documents.

St. Joseph County Prosecutor Michael Dvorak’s name appears twice on the Clinton petitions. After The Tribune faxed one of the signatures to him, Dvorak identified that signature as his own and confirmed that he had signed the petition. Dvorak did not respond after a copy of the second signature on the same petition was faxed to him by The Tribune.

Spokeswoman Lora Bentley later said the prosecutor could no longer comment on the matter because it was now under investigation. Falsifying a ballot petition is a Class D felony in Indiana. According to Dale Simmons, co-legal counsel for the Elections Division, the statute of limitations for Class D felonies is five years.

According to the newspaper’s investigation, the evidence suggests that at least 19 pages of Obama’s petitions were copied by two individuals.

If only there had been someone around to challenge those petition signatures, someone like the 1996 edition of Barack Obama.

Mark Penn, chief adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton, tells GQ five ways Barack Obama could lose in 2012

Bafflingly, his number one is a raid on Mullah Omar going wrong and number two is too much chest-thumping about killing Osama bin Laden. Three and four are the ones that I bet came quickest to readers’ minds, an economy that continues to sputter between now and Election Day 2012, making Obama’s presidency feel like one long four-year recession.

Number five is a sex scandal; if I were GQ I would be wondering how seriously Penn took these questions.

On Hillary’s campaign, Penn was famously unaware of which states awarded their Democrat delegates proportionally and which ones were winner-take-all, getting a great deal of blame after her campaign ended. This interview raises the question of whether his judgment has improved.

No, no, if you want to get an exponentially more likely reason than a botched raid on Omar, take a look at Gallup this morning: “Americans’ satisfaction with the way things are going in the country fell to 20% in early June from 26% at the start of May. Seventy-eight percent of Americans are now dissatisfied with the nation’s direction, according to a June 9-12 Gallup poll.”

From the last Morning Jolt of the week, one that looks at three angles of the Libya story, including this one . . .

Pardon a second Libya item in today’s edition, but this is the second “Say what?” moment of the day: “The White House would forge ahead with military action in Libya even if Congress passed a resolution constraining the mission, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during a classified briefing to House members Wednesday afternoon. Clinton was responding to a question from Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) about the administration’s response to any effort by Congress to exercise its war powers, according to a senior Republican lawmaker who attended the briefing. The answer surprised many in the room because Clinton plainly admitted the administration would ignore any and all attempts by Congress to shackle President Obama’s power as commander in chief to make military and wartime decisions. In doing so, he would follow a long line of Presidents who have ignored the act since its passage, deeming it an unconstitutional encroachment on executive power.”

All statements from Barack Obama come with an expir–okay, no, really, this one is out there. In an earlier edition of the Jolt, I had speculated how our Constitutional Law Lecturer/Munificient Sun-God would respond if the military operation he launched had specifically not been authorized by Congress, and in fact Congress rejected the authorization. Apparently he would tell Congress to go pound sand (which is apparently the preferred military tactic of our new allies in the rebellion).

This is enough to spur impeachment talk from . . . er . . . Andrew Sullivan: “If the Obama administration is refusing even to abide by the War Powers Act, then the Congress really needs to vote to defund their adventurism at least or impeach them if it comes to that. Going to war outside even the War Powers Act qualifies as an impeachable offense, it seems to me.”

This is one of those moments where I’m interested in reading Daniel Larison: “This is an outrageous statement, but it’s entirely consistent with what the administration has been illegally doing for the last 12 days. They seem to believe quite seriously that, as long as they don’t call it a war, it doesn’t fall under any laws regulating war powers or the Constitution. The sliver of good news in all of this is that Obama and his officials are showing such contempt for American law and institutions that they are exposing themselves to a serious political backlash. War supporters won’t be able to hide behind the conceit that the war is legal. As far as U.S. law is concerned, it has never been legal, and only people making the most maximalist claims of inherent executive power can believe otherwise.”

If you had asked me before all this Libya mess if a president has the authority to launch military strikes against another state without consulting Congress, I would argue that it is Constitutional but unwise; the bigger and more consequential the military action is, the more unwise it becomes to not get Congress to sign on. I also would have argued that impeachment could be a legitimate response to a president who used his authority as commander-in-chief in a reckless manner. In other words, a president can ignore Congress, but only if he’s willing to risk his presidency over the matter. I can imagine a scenario in which military action is necessary for the security of the country but supremely unpopular with the public and Congress, and the president would need the freedom to do what is needed; similarly, I can imagine a scenario in which a president could strike a target for the most unverified or frivolous of reasons (COUGHsudaneseaspirinfactoryCOUGH).

Obama would never be impeached by this Congress, of course. But his willingness to blow off lawmakers who would probably back him anyway is pretty stunning.

From today’s Morning Jolt, which begins with a look at the extremely ominous reports out of Japan . . .

Hillary Insists She Has No Ambitions. Yet Somehow, We Don’t Believe Her.

Was anyone really expecting Hillary Clinton to stick around for a second Obama term, in the event there is one? Check the list. Almost all of our recent secretaries of state have served roughly four years — Rice, Powell, Albright, Christopher. The last one to serve more than four years was George Schultz.

Nonetheless, Hillary Clinton’s answers to a series of yes-or-no questions from Wolf Blitzer generated its share of buzz:

Q- If the president is reelected, do you want to serve a second term as secretary of state?

Clinton: No.

Q- Would you like to serve as secretary of defense?

Clinton: No.

Q- Would you like to be vice president of the United States?

Clinton: No.

Q – Would you like to be president of the United States?

Clinton: No.

In related news, she has always been a Yankees fan. Easy with those rapid-fire questions, Wolf, you’ll give her flashbacks to the sniper fire from the Tuzla Dash.

At Outside the Beltway, Doug Mataconis thinks this will be Hillary’s last major role in public life: “Of course, this doesn’t meant that Clinton wouldn’t stay on if President Obama asked her to, much like Robert Gates has stayed on for two years after the President who first nominated him for Secretary of Defense left office, but that does strike me as a rather emphatic answer. Also, there will be those who will simply refuse to believe that she, and her husband, will simply leave electoral p0litics and I’m sure we’ll see a nice healthy dose of ‘Hillary in 2016′ speculation four years from now. However, as I’ve noted before, Clinton will be 69 years old in 2016 and she may not be in the mood for what would be another open race for the Democratic nomination.”

Ann Althouse thinks that Hillary’s denial of any desire to run for president may prove more elastic than it initially appears: “You know, this question of wanting or liking to be President . . . I don’t think one should ever want such an awesome responsibility. One always hopes that there is some far greater, far more experienced woman or man who will take on the overwhelming responsibilities of the presidency. It’s not about liking to be President. The Presidency is a profound duty, never to be undertaken for personal satisfaction. What I would like would be for Barack Obama to measure up to the trust the American people have put in him. That is what I want. But if, for whatever reason, the American people desire a change — and Wolf, it is what the American people want that is essential here — and if the American people turn to me, because I am the most able, best experienced person to move into the role of President, I would not turn away from them. By the grace of God, I would endeavor to serve them.”

Today Moammar Qaddafi responded to the violence in his country with an insane, rambing, endless speech in which he invoked Tiananmen Square, Russian tanks shelling the Duma, and the siege on the Branch Davidian compound, called the protesters “rats” and “cockroaches,” pledged to fight to the last drop of blood, and ordered protesters to surrender their weapons, saying there would be a “slaughter” and pledging to purge Libya “house by house” and “inch by inch.”

The man’s a lunatic, but his intentions seemed pretty clear.

Our scretary of state responds:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday Libya must end violence against protesters seeking to end Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s 41-year rule and the United States would take “appropriate steps” in time.

“As we gain a greater understanding of what actually is happening — because you know, of course, that communication has been very effectively shut down and we are trying to gather as much information as possible — we will take appropriate steps in line with our policies, our values and our laws,” she told reporters during a news conference. “But we are going to have to work in concert with the international community.”

“We are obviously watching developments in Libya with grave concern. We have joined with the international community in strongly condemning the violence in Libya and we believe that the government of Libya bears responsibility for what is occurring and must take actions to end the violence,” Clinton said.

He just said he’s going to kill everyone who opposes him, which would appear to suggest he’s not that interested in “taking actions to end the violence.” Or, I suppose, in his his mind, the violence will end once he’s killed everyone who opposes him.

The latest U.S. State Department list of gifts from foreign leaders to American officials was released this week, revealing what foreign governments gave to President Obama, the First Lady, the cabinet, diplomatic staff, visiting members of Congress, and some CIA personnel.

Since 1978, federal employees have been required to file reports with their agencies detailing gifts worth more than $305 received from foreign governments. Employees are permitted to keep gifts worth less that that; gifts worth more are considered gifts to the agency, although the employee has the option of purchasing the item. In almost all cases, the gift is accepted because “non-acceptance would have caused embarrassment to donor and the U.S. government.” Non-purchased gifts are either turned over to the General Services Administration for storage or retained by the agency for official display. In some cases, lawmakers are permitted to display the gifts in their offices, which is deemed “official use.”

The president receives ceremonial gifts everywhere he goes; everything is appraised in case the lawmaker decides to purchase the gift from the government. Food, wine, and edible gifts are “handled pursuant to Secret Service policy.”

Pope Benedict XVI gave Obama a “gilt framed and matted mosaic depicting St. Peter’s Square; decorative gold coin with the inscription ‘Benedict XVI Pont Max Anno IV’ with the profile of Pope Benedict the XVI; booklet entitled ‘Instruction Dignitas Personae On Certain Bioethical Questions’; book entitled ‘Encyclical Letter Caritas in Veritate of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI’; silver keychain.” All of that was collectively estimated at a value of $7,905.

Shimon Peres, president of Israel, gave Obama a bronze statue of a girl releasing a flock of doves, estimated to be worth $8,000. The pen holder made from the wood of the HMS Gannet, given by then–prime minister Gordon Brown, is valued at $16,510.

Saudi King Abdullah gave Obama a “large desert scene on a green veined marble base featuring miniature figurines of gold palm trees and camels; large gold medallion with the Royal seal in a green leather display box; large brass and glass clock by Jaeger-LeCoultre in a green leather display case.” The entire package was assessed at $34,500. But the king’s gift to Michelle Obama cost even more: A ruby and diamond jewelry set consisting of a pair of earrings, a ring, a bracelet, and a necklace, estimated to cost $132,000.

Of course, you didn’t have to be as wealthy as the Saudi rulers to give expensive gifts to the First Lady: Ernestina Naadu Mills, first lady of the Republic of Ghana, gave her a “Backes and Strauss ‘Black Star of Ghana’  watch, crafted in 18 karat gold with diamonds and leather,” estimated to be worth $48,000.

Then again, not every gift is so pricey; Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, gave President Obama a bottle of olive oil valued at $75.

A fascinating bit of irony considering the controversy Hillary Clinton found herself in, dealing with U.S. diplomatic personnel collecting personal and sensitive data on U.N. personnel: On February 1, 2002, then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Israel, and Tourism Minister Binyamin Elon gave her a gift, a metal-and-wood sculpture by artist Israel Hadany valued at $3,500. The sculpture’s title? “The Spies.”

(One of my favorites, from a few years ago: “Shortly before Christmas 2004, King Abdullah and Queen Rania of Jordan gave Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld an “aromatherapy gift set” valued at $380. It may never be known if the collection of scents soothed the secretary’s nerves; the gift was turned over to the General Services Administration.”)

Back in 2006, I wrote about the gifts to then–CIA Director George Tenet for the (gasp!) Washington Post. The list of donors and non-director recipients is classified, but I noted back then that the gift descriptions offered a clue of the donor’s nationality: Bahranian 22-karat gold coins, a “Pakistan ‘Tabriz’ design rug,” valued at $500, “Pakistan Bokhara rug,” valued at $500, and perhaps most intriguingly, a “Qum silk rug” on May 8, 2004, about 7 feet by 4 feet, in emerald green and red. Qum, a city famous for its ornate rugs, is in Iran, which has no diplomatic relations with the United States.

I notice this year there are no revealing adjectives on the list for gifts to CIA employees.

“[F-word] the president.”

That’s what was said at a closed-door meeting of the Democratic caucus by an unnamed Democratic member of Congress.

Many of us on the right have argued for a while now that there’s something foul in the soul of the Democratic grassroots. They’ve objected and pointed fingers back at us; few would argue that there’s an ever-intensifying nastiness in our body politic. Sure, we laugh at the over-the-top insults from the days of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, but you have to give those insults some literary style points. And note that the fury was focused on the political leaders; now all any ordinary voter has to do is show the wrong bumper sticker and someone will feel free to hurl insults and give them the finger. Of course, that presumes they don’t bite off the finger.

Everybody thinks the other side is more responsible for it; if you’re on the left side of the aisle, I doubt there’s much I could say that would persuade you. I’d argue that there is a different tone and standards for posting on Daily Kos and Red State, between even FreeRepublic and AmericaBlog. Yesterday at AmericaBlog, run by John Aravosis, a perfect gentleman I’ve enjoyed having discussions with, there was a comment about the president’s “GOP butt-licking fetish.”

The First Amendment ensures your right to talk this way . . . but why would you? And even if some yahoo on a blog does it, shouldn’t we expect better from a member of Congress? Erick Erickson of Red State spotted the likely irony: “I bet the Dem who said “F— the President” today supported censure of Joe Wilson for saying ‘you lie.’”

Yelling “you lie” earned Wilson a deserved rebuke; we’ll see if dropping the F-bomb in reference to the president in a meeting of several hundred people earns any serious consequence for this unnamed lawmaker. My fear is no. Sure, it was a semi-private meeting, and I’m sure this isn’t the first F-bomb to be dropped on Capitol Hill — I’m sure we all remember the much-discussed exchange between former vice president Dick Cheney and Sen. Patrick Leahy. But this feels different, like another line has been crossed in standards of public behavior. Wasn’t any Democrat in that room offended by those words? Didn’t anybody object?

Once you start marinating in this nastiness, it starts to seep into how you think and speak, and perhaps you can’t turn it off. It is now defining the Left. Michael Moore. Bill Maher. Joy Behar. It didn’t just stay in the grassroots and celebrities; it came to the halls of Congress with Alan Grayson.

We on the right hated Hillary Clinton back in the 1990s. Then the 2008 campaign comes along, Hillary is perceived to be the less liberal candidate than Obama, and suddenly Air America’s Randi Rhodes is calling her a “big [f-word]ing whore.” This is Hillary Clinton we’re talking about. Ten years earlier, almost every Democrat in America loved her, and we were the ones calling her names. But once she’s not their preferred choice, they can turn on her and denounce her in the same tone they would use to denounce a conservative Republican.

And now, finally, it comes full circle. Now they’re sneering at Obama. Their guy. The guy whom they adored, perhaps as much as any party has ever adored its leader, in 2007 and 2008. Now they say, “[F-word] him.”

Hey, pal, that’s the President of the United States. Show some respect.

(How did it come to the point where we have to be the ones to demand that?)

UPDATE: Well, I guess we have a suspect: My congressman, Jim Moran of Virginia, recently said, “I don’t know where the f*** Obama is on this or anything else” to a reporter.

Allison Wright of Hillary Clinton for President e-mails me (and anyone else who signed up for the old HillaryClinton.com mailing list):

Dear Jim, 

Hillary — as always — said it best. ”You never gave in. You never gave up. And together, we made history.” 

Do you remember Hillary’s speech at the Democratic National Convention? It was an historic moment, one that made all of us proud. If you missed the first opportunity to buy a DVD of her speech, you are in luck. We have a few of our special edition 2008 National Democratic Convention DVDs left, and we want to share them with you. 

If you contribute $50 or more today to help retire the last bit of Hillary’s campaign debt, we will send you a DVD with Hillary’s historic speech at the 2008 Denver convention, and the inspiring video that introduced her. That’s not all — it also includes President Clinton’s speech and a special message that Hillary recorded just for you. And, for those of you who want something extra special, you can contribute $250 or more and receive one of our special “signature” DVDs hand-signed by Hillary. We only have 50 “signature” DVDs remaining, so act fast if you’d like one for yourself or for a holiday gift!

Hillary suspended her campaign two and a half years ago. She still owes roughly $479,000 to Mark Penn’s firm.

Remember, she’ll know if you buy one or not. According to WikiLeaks, her State Department employees are watching you!

The top headline in the print version of today’s Washington Post reads, “Most support full body scanners; half in poll call frisking intrusive.”

But when they say “half,” they don’t mean among those who actually fly commercial air travel and experience the pat-downs.

FLIERS — The results, as noted, differ among travel groups. People who fly at least annually are 12 points more apt to oppose the new screening machines and a slight eight points more apt to criticize the new pat-downs as an unjustified intrusion on personal privacy. Among Americans who say they fly at least once or twice a year — just fewer than half the public — 58 percent support the screening machines, with 37 percent opposed; that compares to 70-27 percent among people who fly infrequently or not at all. Similarly, support for the new pat-downs, 52 percent among infrequent fliers, slips to 44 percent among those who fly at least annually.

Those who fly more than once a year split 44 percent in favor, 54 percent oppose on the pat-downs. That’s not really “half.” The pollster also notes:

Though the sample is small, the results indicate that opposition rises further among more-frequent fliers, those who fly at least every few months.

Are we surprised that those who will rarely or never experience the pat-downs are less opposed to them? Like Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, for these folks, a TSA agent reaching where he shouldn’t is an entirely theoretical manner.

UPDATE: This point, reinforced: “Cabinet secretaries, top congressional leaders and an exclusive group of senior U.S. officials are exempt from toughened new airport screening procedures when they fly commercially with government-approved federal security details. Aviation security officials would not name those who can skip the controversial screening, but other officials said those VIPs range from top officials like Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and FBI Director Robert Mueller to congressional leaders like incoming House Speaker John Boehner, who avoided security before a recent flight from Washington’s Reagan National Airport.”

From this morning’s Jolt:

In the Great Junk-Touching Fight of 2010, There Are No Winners

“Drudge Wins,” charges Politico’s Ben Smith. He posits: “The weekend collapse of the Administration’s airline screening policy is hard to understand as a matter of messaging, with Clinton undermining the TSA’s screening regime and the relevant official sending a hazy mixed message on the subject, even as the screening policy remains in place. There’s no doubt about who won on this issue: Matt Drudge chose it and drove it, illustrating both his continued power and his great sense of the public mood, and it now seems a matter of time until he gets results.But the moment is also, a smart Democrat notes, representative of how this administration (and to be fair, everyone in public life) continues to wrestle with ‘populism as narrated by the Drudge Report.’”

Not to take anything away from Drudge and how he’s covered this continuing controversy, but Smith seems to make it sound like Matt has a giant “GENERATE OUTRAGE” button in his mysterious lair. Every once in a while, Drudge makes much ado about nothing — I recall the hyping of a British paper’s “Does John McCain have cancer?” speculation only to learn that McCain bumped his head getting out of a helicopter. But in those cases, the hype hurricanes dissipate quickly. No media entity can make the public care about something that they’re thoroughly and genuinely disinterested in; if you really don’t care about “Dancing with the Stars,” no amount of dramatic metaphors can persuade you this is a key indicator of Sarah Palin’s chances in 2012.

No, Drudge just recognized that air travel already stinks, Americans already hate that they’re all treated as potential terrorists, that too many TSA employees already behave in an unprofessional manner, and that in this shameless, too-often too-crude culture, giving $24K to $34K per year employees the power to touch strangers’ body parts is an invitation for chaos. At its heart, this entire policy is a reflection that our entire concept of this bureaucracy is to prevent TSA screeners from making judgment calls. Everything must have a national policy. Everything must have a checklist. Every decision must be able to survive the scrutiny of a gamut of lawyers.

The indicators of public outrage, disbelief, and incredulousness continue. On Monday night, Letterman’s Top Ten List was about this topic, suggesting aspiring TSA employees ask themselves if they really want their new job to include feeling the inside thighs of a fat guy.

Intriguingly, a pro-Obama site, Venice for Change, concludes that “Hillary Clinton gets it; President Obama not so much.”

Allahpundit, writing at Hot Air, points out that public attitudes about this will probably be set in concrete by early next week: “In any case, and needless to say, the acid test on all this is what happens tomorrow through Sunday, when a whole lot of Americans will get a taste of the new procedures firsthand. I think William Saletan’s right that “Opt Out Day” is apt to generate more of a backlash towards TSA skeptics than towards TSA itself as harried passengers stuck in line scream at them to just go through the scanner already. And if TSA can convince the public that the scanners are safe — which they are, provided that they’re only emitting the amount of radiation they’re supposed to emit — then this week might actually lead many fliers to develop a comfort level with the new procedures.”

From the last Jolt of the week:

It is October. Somebody wake up the band Green Day; September has ended.

The First In-Kind Donation to Hillary 2012 Comes From Gallup

I, for one, admire the cahones of Gallup to conduct a poll that you know will generate some chilly looks between the President and secretary of State at the next cabinet meeting.

The pollster informs us, “If Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were to challenge President Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2012, she would currently have the support of 37% of Democrats nationally, while 52% would support Obama . . . Obama’s strengths among Democrats in the hypothetical matchup with Clinton lie with college graduates and liberals, the latter of whom make up about 36% of this sample of 859 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. Clinton does better among less well-educated Democrats and bests Obama among conservatives, who make up 22% of Democrats. Clinton does slightly better among women than among men.”

The 37 number is less surprising than the 52 number. Barely half of Democrats are certain they want Obama running for reelection in 2012?

A lot of right-of-center bloggers are skeptical of this scenario ever coming to pass; I’ll get to their objections in a second. But for a moment, let’s just realize that we’ve learned in the past decade or so that American politics can unbelievably unexpected turns rapidly. The president can get caught having sex with an intern; the presidential race can come down to a couple hundred votes and hanging chads in Florida; the New York skyline can be suddenly and horrifically altered with thousands dead; the hated dictator who gassed the Kurds can turn out to not have stockpiles of WMDs, the world’s most wanted terrorist can pop up the Friday before an election to offer an ultimatum; a Florida congressman can get caught doing unspeakable things with House pages; within five years an unknown state senator from Chicago with an unpronounceable name can become the leader of the free world, beating in succession two of the biggest names in American politics.

Hillary Clinton will say, a million times, that she’s no longer interested in running for president, that she likes her current job, that it is plenty challenging, etcetera. And by and large, she’s been a good soldier for the past two years. But it’s really hard to believe that every last drop of the desire to be president left her in summer of 2008, and you wonder if she keeps Bill up lamenting, “He’s just like I said he was. He’s so unprepared for all of this. He’s never dealt with rejection and adversity on a scale like this. Remember the 3 a.m. ad? Remember the Saturday Night Live parody of the 3 a.m. ad?”

“Hillary, it is 3 a.m.”

“And somewhere, a phone is ringing, Bill! And I should have been the one answering it!”

Will it happen? Probably not. But the likelihood is now more than zero, and each poll like this showing rank-and-file Democrats surprisingly “meh” on Obama moves it one notch further away from zero. Hillary won’t do it if she doesn’t think she can win, and won’t do it unless she can plausibly argue that the party’s grassroots wants her to. She’s not there . . . yet.

By the way, notice all the easy jokes about what Bill Clinton is doing at 3 a.m. that I avoided.

Gallup:

If Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were to challenge President Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2012, she would currently have the support of 37% of Democrats nationally, while 52% would support Obama.

In related news, Hillary Clinton found that all of the locks had been changed during her lunch hour at the State Department today. Odd.

On April 20, 2008, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign booked a Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, high school for a campaign event.

More than two years later, her campaign still hasn’t paid the bill, and it’s becoming an issue in the local House race.

Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan promised Monday to ask Bill Clinton’s staff for help in getting Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign to pay a lingering $15,082 debt to city schools.

The former president comes to Salisbury Township on Tuesday to raise money for Callahan, a fellow Democrat running for Congress. Callahan agreed to help the school district after it urged him to intervene in settling a bill that dates to the 2008 presidential primary and an event at Liberty High School.

“He will ask the president’s staff about how this situation can be rectified,” Callahan campaign manager Justin Schall said.

The Bethlehem Area School District asked for Callahan’s help four days ago in a memo released to reporters Monday by the campaign of Republican U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent, Callahan’s foe. Independent Jake Towne also is in the 15th District race to represent the Lehigh Valley on Capitol Hill.

If Peter Beinart is going to claim that ”on the right, speculation is already rampant” that Hillary Clinton will challenge Obama in 2012, he probably should come up with more than one paragraph in a Peggy Noonan column, a RedState post, and the umpteenth round of speculation from Dick Morris.

Sure, speculation about this is around, if you look hard enough. But then again, most ideas are.

I mean, look at this guy, speculating about another Hillary presidential bid in mid-November 2008:

She might even make it back to the White House. After all, Barack Obama’s meteoric rise is the exception: Most politicians—Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush I—need to lose a presidential bid or two before they finally win. Hillary still has time. In eight years, she’ll be younger than Reagan was when he entered the White House, and younger than McCain is now. (Something that can’t be said for, say, Joe Biden).

That guy, of course . . . is Peter Beinart.

Jerry Brown made it official today: He wants to be California’s governor again.

I wonder what the Secretary of State thinks. Bill Clinton said he “ought to be shamed of [himself] for jumping on [his] wife.”

The last time Jerry Brown was governor, CBS News was calling him “the most unpopular politician in California.”

Why is New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo investigating his onetime primary rival, and the man who currently occupies the job he wants, David Paterson? Of course, Cuomo isn’t officially a gubernatorial canddiate; Cuomo’s ambition to be governor is an open secret, even though the official filing will come some time in the future.

Rick Lazio is running for governor of New York, and his chances of winning are small. But he’s raising a very legitimate point about his likely rival.

“It seems to me absurd, honestly, that Andrew Cuomo, as a political aspirant to the governor’s mansion not appoint somebody who is beyond reproach and independent and unbiased on this to conduct this investigation,” Lazio said.

“I think this has got to be done by somebody other than Andrew Cuomo. The points I raise is, if he was behind, or if his agents were behind, pushing these stories around that were discrediting Paterson for the last few weeks, and particularly these last couple weeks, then it seems to me that he’s disqualified from actually being the kind of investigator that both Paterson and the state needs.

In Virginia, when Bob McDonnell’s gubernatorial campaign kicked into high gear, he resigned as state attorney general. In New Hampshire, when attorney general Kelly Ayotte decided she wanted to run for Senate, she departed that job, too. But some stay in the job; among them, Pennsylvania’s Tom Corbett, who aspires to the governorship, and Jerry Brown made his gubernatorial bid official in California today.

But once a case comes along that involves the immediate predecessor — with big political repercussions – the case ought to be handed off to someone who doesn’t have a vested interest in the outcome.

Buried in the 36th paragraph of the front-page, above-the-fold, “If only everyone had listened to Rahm” story in the Washington Post today is this damning quote from an unidentified House Democrat:

“There is this growing sense in the House that this White House is tone-deaf and doesn’t care about 2010, that it is sacrificing members for 2012 and that the president thinks he doesn’t need to get engaged, or that he thinks politics don’t matter and that he could care less about what is happening on the streets of our districts. That’s not Rahm.”