Via Ben Smith again (what can I say--the guy finds good stuff), I see that David Corn has an interesting theory about why the Clintonites have been so out-of-sorts since Obama climbed back into the race: they absolutely loathe him. Now, obviously, you don't often peel back the curtain and discover that political rivals are best friends. But there's a big difference between annoyance or exasperation and outright hatred. The former are perfectly rational emotions; the latter, not so much. If some of the Clintonites, particularly Hillary, really do detest Obama (Corn thinks they find him "presumptuous" and "uppity" ), then that could explain some of the bizarre and counter-productive outbursts of the last few days. I'm guessing hatred is also the emotion that helped introduce "vast right-wing conspiracy" into the political lexicon, and I'm not sure that worked out so well...
Having said that, Hillary and the people around her are pros if nothing else. I'd expect them to be able to suppress their emotions and get on with it. The question is whether they can pull it together in time to right the ship in Iowa. It's obviously going to be a long, hard slog to the nomination if not.
Update: Oops, I see that my colleague Ben Crair linked to the Corn item yesterday afternoon.
--Noam Scheiber
