O Captain! My Captain!
Our fearful trip is done.
— Walt Whitman

Spurning appeals to throw it in, Hillary Clinton is pressing on. But she has to know her attempted Clinton restoration is over, done, finis.

She began as invincible, inevitable — and ended incoherent. Ended petulant, aggrieved, self-centered, boring, stiff; calculating, cynical, contrived. She began as conservatives’ and moderates’ worst nightmare, and became — shrill, cackling, Chicago-suburb Southern accent, lifelong Yankee fan, and all — the endlessly morphing nightmare Plastic Girl of leftist Democrats as well.

The ship has weathered every rack,
The prize we sought is won.

Well no. It’s lost. She might wind up on the ticket (though it’s unlikely), yet she’ll carry on for The Cause — ever striving to advance a decaying, dispiriting liberalism and to overcome a perceived sexism, her failed presidential campaign dubious testimony to the wisdom of philosopher Gloria Steinem’s insight that “gender is probably the most restricting force in American life.”

The prize — the Democratic nomination — was lost to a superior candidate seeking to overcome American life’s principal competing restriction that is not genderism but race. Against Obamamania, not even the leftist women’s group Emily’s List — perhaps the nation’s No. 1 political action committee — was enough.

Exult o shores, and ring o bells!

Hardly. Rather — toll those bells, bag them, and muffle the cadencing drums. For along the way Hillary Clinton encountered abundant inconvenient truths that ultimately overwhelmed. Truths such as:

— That from sea to shining sea many women don’t trust her, just don’t like her. It’s her own woman problem rivaling bubba Bill’s.

— That a Clinton legacy built on triangulation and $8-a-barrel oil and gazillion billions for expanding government health care, was unenduring. The latte left that long seemed so smitten, ditched her when someone better came along, leaving in shambles the Clinton legacy — or the portion of it unconnected to oral sex.

— That many Democrats are underwhelmed by the prospect of both Clintons returned to the White House and renting out the Lincoln Bedroom. In the words of The Wall Street Journal: “It took 10 years, but you might say Democrats have finally voted to impeach.”

— That sniper fire on the tarmac in Tuzla summarized a litany of Billary lies and excessive behavior. Continued...