A friend (who happens to be a loyal Democrat) has just sent me this:

FWIW, I am already sick of the above picture. Naturally, I didn't know what to do with it, so naturally, I'm putting it in this blog post. I'd hate to be manipulated by the vast right wing conspiracy, though, and I'm avoiding that by not googling the picture.

What I don't know I can't be charged with, right?

(Right.....)

But at the risk of sounding like a VRWC theorist, I do know (and I admit) that I am already sick of Hillary. No; unlike Andrew Sullivan I am not struggling to overcome "hatred" of her. I don't think she's worth hating. Besides, as I have said in far too many posts already, I believe her presidency is inevitable, so why would I hate her? Shouldn't I love her? I'll say this for Hillary: she's one of the few major public office holders to personally answer me in a signed letter with a specific reference to the subject of concern to me. I do appreciate that.

At minimum, I should try to be polite, and perhaps it's rude for me to admit I am sick of Hillary. The thing is, I'm trying to be honest here, and if Andrew Sullivan can grapple with his admitted hatred (hatred he feels no more) then I think I should try to examine my tiredness.

Sullivan says he hated Hillary (who "managed to arouse every one of my love-to-hate zones") before he stopped hating her. Hate is a strong emotion, and a destructive, poisonous one. It cannot be carried on forever. But the thing is, being sick of something or someone is very different.

How do you stop being sick of something? Sheesh! Does this mean I have to explain why I was sick of Hillary? That's almost as bad as examining whether I still am -- but let me try.

I was sick of Hillary long ago -- way back in the mid 90s. I voted for -- no, that's just it. I didn't vote for her; I voted for Bill Clinton. But they started this "co-president" deal that "twofer" business, and it made me feel as if I had voted for her. She acted as if she had been elected, and I didn't like that. I didn't like (and still don't like) socialized medicine, and I didn't like the smoke and mirrors with Hillary's Health Care Plan from Hell. There were so many just-short-of-an-indictment things, from firing the travel employees, rudeness to the staff and the secret service, shreddings, missing records turning up in the kitchen, and the last minute terrorist pardon deal was (I thought) just beyond the pale. I breathed a sigh of relief when she was gone -- not because I hated her, but because I was sick of her.

It's hard to forget the main reason she left the White House -- that her husband had to leave the White House because the Constitution required it. Had there been no 22nd Amendment, he'd have been easily, overwhelmingly, elected to a third term. Or should I say she?

Anyway, I am sick again of Hillary, and I didn't want to be, but this latest move on her part has activated a lot of talk which I'm not supposed to ignore, and which gives me this ghastly sense of blogligation! I know there's nothing literally requiring me to write a blog post, but I hate it when my agenda is dictated by the decisions of other people. And let's face it, it was Hillary's decision to run, not mine. I'd rather she not have, because I'd rather not have felt forced to write another blog post about her.

But there's that picture above. Regardless of its source, I think it brings up an important point.

It occurs to me that Hillary may be a bit like Lurleen Wallace.

Who is Lurleen Wallace? Why she was the wife of Alabama governor George Wallace, and she ran for office only because her husband was legally barred from seeking another term.

He could have easily won a second term in 1966 had he been eligible to stand for one; in Alabama (as in many states at the time), governors were not allowed to serve two consecutive terms. This provision dated back to the adoption of the current state constitution in 1901.

Wallace attacked this problem on two fronts. First, Wallace worked for the repeal of the term-limiting constitutional provision. Although he failed to achieve the change in time for the 1966 campaign, he eventually succeeded; Wallace was to serve three subsequent terms, including two which were consecutive. Second, Wallace devised a plan in which his wife, Lurleen, would run for governor while he controlled the policies and procedures of the governorship in the background, duplicating the strategy in which Ma Ferguson won the 1917 election for governor in Texas.

Wallace's attempt to change the succession rule in time for the 1966 campaign failed. However, using his wife as his electoral surrogate succeeded, and Mrs. Wallace won the Democratic nomination for governor in 1966. She was elected Governor of Alabama in November 1966, and her inauguration was held in January 1967.

Times have changed, and I don't mean to say that Hillary Clinton is the exactly the same as Lurleen Wallace, for she has served in the United States Senate, and she wants desperately (a little too desperately, IMHO) to be seen as her own man. (Er, sorry, her own woman.)

But is she really her own woman? A Margaret Thatcher, perhaps? To answer this, I think it's fair to ask whether Hillary Clinton could have (or would have) ever been elected president without Bill having been president.

I don't think so. But back in the 90s it occurred to me that the main reason I was sick of her was because I was sick of him.

So perhaps I shouldn't ask myself whether I am still sick of her. Perhaps I should ask whether I'm still sick of him.

The answer is yes.

I fear it will only get worse.

Tiredness doesn't improve with age.

AFTERTHOUGHT: It occurs to me that once you become sick of something, it's almost impossible to stop being sick of it. It's a little like an overplayed song. ("If I hear that 'Young Girl Get Out of My Heart' or "Sign, Sign Everywhere a Sign!" one more time.....")

I realize that people are sick of Bush, but I'd remind them that people were once just as sick of the Clintons.

Unless there's a moral lesson along the lines that we must "take turns to be sick," I'm afraid I'm confused.