Might this story be another missing piece in the top-secret Hillary for President puzzle?

Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean has asked General Wesley Clark to join his campaign. For something like this to be happening so early in the race, something has to be happening -- or about to happen. Dean is suddenly running to the right, and running scared. I think Dean smells blood in the water. His own blood. Fifty days or so remain for Hillary Clinton to declare.

Have Dean's spies learned something from the Clinton camp?

Obviously, I can't prove anything (and even if I had inside information I would refuse to disclose it). But on top of the earlier oddity I blogged about recently, (see Who's afraid of Howard Dean?) this just cannot be ignored.

Stay tuned. But it looks and smells like trouble.

Trouble is, it might mean trouble for the country.

(UPDATED for explanatory link.)

UPDATE: I don't know how I missed this piece from Mark Steyn, but I did:

What does she have to gain by waiting four years? If Bush wins a second term, the Clinton aura will be very faded by 2008. And, if by some weird chance Bush loses to a Howard Dean, she's going to have to hang around till 2012. Logic dictates that, if Hillary wants to be president, it's this year or none. In her reflexive attacks on Bush over the war and the blackout and everything else, she already sounds like a candidate. The press will lapse into its familiar poodle mode (''Do you think you've been attacked so harshly because our society still has difficulty accepting a strong, intelligent woman?'' etc.). And, more to the point, when the party's busting to hand you the nomination, you only get one opportunity to refuse.

Realistically, Hillary has to decide in the next eight weeks. If the meteoric rise of Howard Dean has stalled by then, the answer's obvious. And, even if it hasn't, you need an awful lot of $20 Internet donations to counter a couple of checks from Barbra Streisand. This is Hillary's moment. You go, girl.