How far the mighty hath fallen. Hillary Clinton, once the soon-to-be-crowned Queen of the Democrats has been unseated by a young, charismatic upstart named Barack Hussein Obama. Queen Hillary has been suffering multiple upsets at the hands of this Democratic whippersnapper who has been so…so impudent as to challenge her God Given Right to the Democratic nomination.

At first, Her Majesty believed that she could deal with this pest by humbling him in New Hampshire and Nevada, then crushing him on Super Tuesday. But Super Tuesday came and went, and…guess what? That impudent little ant was still around. All the “ready from day one” talk had failed to finish him – although the Royalists had successfully defended the big states on her behalf, the little ones, like the disloyal children they are, flocked to the new Messiah. Worse was to follow. After Barack Hussein (Now pronounced Hey-sus by the faithful) Obama’s surprising performance during SupT, Her Majesty’s advisors were stumped. The Royal Chamberlain, the Prime Minister, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men didn’t have a clue about what to do next. The high road had failed, playing the all-wise, benevolent Queen didn’t do a whit against the Second Coming of John Kennedy.

So Queen Hillary became Maleficent (dammit, am I *that* old?) and her Imperial Army became the SturmAbteilung. If she couldn’t win playing nice, she would win playing not-so-nice.

In retrospect, the seeds of this were sown immediately following her loss in Iowa. She came in a stunning third in the running behind Barack Obama and John Edwards. Her resurgence in New Hampshire was a boost, but it would seem that her team had come around to realizing that Obama was no lightweight to be buried. The trouble was figuring out how to deal with him. Obama had seized the high ground and the trick was figuring out whether to challenge him to be King (or Queen) of the Hill, or simply tearing the hill down from beneath him. I get the feeling that up until Super Tuesday, Team Clinton believed that they could batter Obama off his perch by hitting him with the “experience” card. The problem was that the Clintons scored a number of own goals along the way – Bill and Hillary’s mishandling of Black sentiment in South Carolina was probably the defining moment (even if no one realized it then) in the Clinton’s campaign: it alienated a lot of black voters who would have previously been more divided in choices – and, by and large, her strategy for seizing the high ground from Obama was mismanaged and muddled. They couldn’t figure how to push him off without seeming petty.

All that changed after her losses following Super Tuesday. Suddenly realizing that seizing the high ground was no longer an option, Clinton turned to digging it out from under him, and to do it, she pulled out the Big Bombs. The Bigot Bombs.

You see, as much as Americans wish that race is no longer a problem for the country any more, the fact is that Americans are still as racist, bigoted and xenophobic as they were when the Mason-Dixon was drawn. The racism is covert and hidden deep in the subconscious psyche of the nation – as it is in every nation. I won’t go into the details of the psychology of racism since all that matters is that fear of the alien is ingrained and indoctrinated into the hearts and minds of all humans – witness the image of the Black gangster, the Latino illegal, the communist Asian, the terrorist Arab. And that is what Clinton is tapping into – white America’s primal fears about coloreds and non-Christian infidels.

That’s why she carped about Lyndon Johnson being more important that MLK. That’s where all the “Hussein”, “Madrassa” and “Muslim” whispers are coming from. The campaign has never acknowledged them but, unlike McCain, Clinton has never directly disavowed these rumors either – they suit her strategy. She has never openly defended Obama against accusations and slander about his patriotism and “Muslim” heritage, not as far as I know. Oh, she’s done the expedient thing – firing those close to her who step too far and may damage her own candidacy – but overall, hers has been a masterful strategy of weaving a web of slander against her opponent. It seems ironic that her greatest allies in this have been the “vast right wing conspiracy” itself. Maybe she’ll call her next book “The Princess”.

Race and religion are incendiary things – as a Malaysian, I’m all too aware of their power – but like all incendiaries, they can just as easily destroy the wielders of their fire. But I don’t think Clinton cares any more. She senses that she may finally have found Obama’s weakness – corral him into the “angry black man” stereotype and she wins. Hence her constant harping about Reverand Wright despite Obama’s magnificent speech on race – you get the message. Obama is radical black. Obama is anti-American. Obama is racist…quite ironic when she is the one wielding these crude weapons of mass destruction. You think that her “3am phone call” ad was about experience? Well, maybe it is, but as one who’s conditioned to see things through the lens of “race”, it harps at more than that. To me it says “Do you want a guy named Hussein calling the shots?” That’s just plain dastardly. And her minions gladly spew this venom all over the internet. You don’t know how annoyed I get at online Clintonistas harping about how they’d rather have McCain than an anti-American Muslim as their president. ‘course, I suppose given she’s been shooting for the Yellow Dog Democratic vote, I guess it isn’t too surprising.

In the end, this kind of politics will destroy the Democratic party. I wrote a while back about the “Lessons from the Malaysian Elections for those in the US”. Here’s a few more: Racism kills. Religious bigotry kills. Carping on patriotism and stability kills. You might win in the short term but in the long run it’s gonna come back and bite you hard in the ass. It will be a sad, sad day for America and the world if Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes the next President of the United Sates.

America and the world are seeking change. It would be pretty surprising if they find it in the one candidate who’s been running a George W. Bush style campaign.

P.S: This is a Baka Bomb