The News Virginian / News Virginian
Published: March 27, 2008

If the ability of presidential candidates to recover from roundhouse blows delivered with precision to their own chins from their own hands is an appropriate measure of their fitness for the job, Barack Obama might just as well move into the White House now.

Knocked to the ropes by the incendiary rants of his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama smoothly slipped to relative safety last week with a speech that brought to a comfortable simmer the national conversation on race just as it seemed on the verge of boiling past the brim. Obama by no means answered all of the questions surrounding his 20-year link to Wright, whom the Democratic senator from Illinois refers to as his mentor, but his typically soaring rhetoric about the enduring racial divide left him little scathed.

Not so Obama's Democratic foe, Hillary Clinton.

Of course, the volley of shots Hillary inflicted upon herself were better timed and a bit more explosive on impact. Let's review for the simple comic pleasure of it: Speaking in Washington last week, Clinton recalled, presumably with requisite trembling, that as first lady under her husband's administration, she traveled to war-torn Bosnia where, roll tape, "I remember landing under sniper fire … we just ran with our heads down to get into vehicles to get to our base."

However entertaining, the recounting carried with it the minor technical flaw that it was profoundly untrue, except for the part about Clinton landing in Bosnia. Upon her arrival there, with daughter Chelsea at her side, Clinton was greeted not by bullets but children brandishing warm smiles rather than automatic weapons.

Having decked herself dizzy with a flub that even makes her opponents wince in pain, Clinton could only flail at the air in vain attempts at recovery. "A minor blip, you know, if" (yes, she really said, 'if') "I said something that, you know, I say a lot of things - millions of words a day - so if I misspoke" (again with the 'if'-) "that was just a misstatement."

Well, OK.

More succinct but better still was her explanation during a venture into the heart of the vast right-wing conspiracy, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review published by billionaire fiscal conservative Richard Mellon Scaife. Of her shot-heard-round-the-world gaffe, Clinton told reporters and editors at The Trib: "I was sleep deprived." That, presumably, has something to do with answering the phone at 3 a.m.

Throughout most of an exhaustive campaign that began more than a year ago, Democrats have looked the part of sure winners, their ascension to Pennsylvania Avenue power a virtual lock. Now the last two candidates standing - while Republican John McCain reclines in the luxury of quick nomination victory - are tumbling over their own feet.

Obama has survived himself for now. Who knows what damage he and Clinton have in store for themselves- McCain's task as the campaign drags on appears to have evolved into one of watching with as much glee as the irascible Arizona senator can muster while his foes slug away at their own battered mugs. As for the rest of us, this can only mean more comedy to come.