Defending Clinton -- Sort Of

The Russian-born stand-up comic Julia Gorin was back in New York this week to discuss my senator's tanking presidential campaign. "I think Hillary can probably pull a rabbit out of her hat to win the nomination," she said. At first I thought she was joking as usual, but Gorin is actually quite serious-minded, and when it comes to politics and the Clintons, she's usually dead-on.

She has been writing serious essays on events in the Balkans and warned me years ago that the next jihadist Muslims would be blond and blue-eyed from Bosnia. Needless to say, when Bosnian immigrant Sulejmen Talovic rampaged with a gun in a Utah mall last year killing five, her words were the first thing I thought of. News reports downplayed any Muslim connection and instead played the killer as a depressed teen. Ms. Gorin warns that our government policy in the Balkans is completely wrongheaded and the president needs to jettison his Clinton-era advisors. Certainly not much to laugh about, that situation, but when Julia talks, I listen.

When I first interviewed Julia Gorin she was touring with a conservative troupe called The Right Stuff in 2004 at the Laugh Factory. When I asked her why she ended up on the right side of politics, she told me: "About 90% of the original waves of refuseniks in the '70s and '80s were natural Republicans. They had witnessed the results of left-wing policies and rejected them. The only people who weren't Republican were college professors and welfare recipients," she said.

When I laughed at this, Ms. Gorin said, "I'm not kidding."

But she actually does kid a lot and is the poster girl for the politically incorrect. She has edited a new book called "Clintonisms," which is a collection of quotes by both Clintons and also contains comments by other public figures. When she first worked on this book last year, it was assumed that Hillary Clinton would be the designated Democratic candidate. Now everybody is wondering why she hasn't conceded the race.

In her defense, I have to note that the numbers for Barack Obama don't quite add up. His biggest delegate wins are in the caucus states. Clinton wins in all the largest states with the greatest number of delegates. Caucuses require fewer voters to select delegates so that means that a disproportionately small amount of caucus voters get to select delegates. I believe Senator Clinton is correct when she suggests that Senator Obama would have weaknesses in the national election in November.

The pertinent math is being overlooked in the mainstream press because it has switched alliances and is biased toward Obama. Much ado about nothing was made recently about what was termed Hillary's gaffe at mentioning Robert F. Kennedy's assassination. But it was Michelle Obama who first mentioned the specter of assassination in a CBS interview in February. Earlier a CBS anchor broached the same question to Senator Kennedy.

Ms. Gorin says she plans to sit out the election this year because she has no one to vote for although she kids, "Hillary would be better for national security than either of the other two, since McCain goes into seizures if you even say the word 'waterboarding' in front of him. And Obama is, well, Obama. But Hillary would be okay for national security. After all, her enemies have been known to disappear." Ouch.

Although Ms. Gorin's book "Clintonisms" contains enough ammunition for the McCain camp to scuttle a Clinton surge, she offers some sage advice for New York's junior senator: "Hillary needs to warn voters that Michelle Obama, who obviously wears the pants around the house, is the driving force behind Obama's candidacy, that she is a calculating woman who is really just positioning herself for a future White House run."

That sounds familiar, doesn't it?

I'm not a Clinton supporter but I do believe in truth in reporting and right now she's taking the brunt of criticism from many who accuse her of destroying the nomination process. But I have to ask the question: What made Barack Obama run now? He's young and has plenty of time to store up experience for future races.

So who's really behind his candidacy? Karl Rove?

So who will it be, I asked Julia, Clinton or Obama?

Her answer: McCain in a landslide.

Then maybe New York will get its senator back to work.