I am not going to repeat Clinton's comments. Nor am I going to speculate about the motive behind such a remark. I am, however, going to point out the flaws in the reasoning she used to justify her statements yesterday.

Senator Clinton had indicated in prefacing her original remark that she was providing justification for her continued campaign. But the two primaries she invoked provide no support for her case.

First she mentioned her husband's campaign in 1992, which she said only "wrap[ped] up the nomination in 1992 [when] he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June." Well, perhaps that's the point at which he clinched the nomination with that final delegate that put him over the threshold, but that's hardly how long it took him to "wrap up" the nomination. He swept Supertuesday, and for all practical purposes sealed his nomination with his April 7th win in New York.

Second, she implied that - for whatever reason - should Obama not be able to fulfill the role of Democratic nominee, she would need to be prepared to step up. Well, that may be true, but that hardly justifies her continued campaigning. That thinking suggests that she's basically campaigning for second place..."just in case." But that's absurd. There's no competition for second place. The other Democratic candidates have won a combined .3% of the delegates available. They have all dropped out of the race. She faces no competition in that respect. If her concern is simply ensuring that she's in the runner-up spot, in beauty pageant style, in case "the winner is unable to perform his duties as nominee," I think she can rest easy. Her place is secure. No need to continue the long and increasingly bitter struggle.

Finally, Mrs. Clinton said she was using "historic fact" to show that there's precedent for carrying the Democratic nomination race all the way through the summer. Well, there is some precedent for that. However, in the years in which that was the case, the Democratic Party lost the election pretty badly. So in making historical allusions to, say, 1968 and 1972, she's merely undermining her own argument as to why she should continue the race.

If she wants to explain her decision to continue the race, she should just be honest and say that she has a plan to capture the nomination at the last minute. If she doesn't wish to be honest about that, then it's time to withdraw gracefully...assuming that's still possible at this point.

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