Never for a moment have I doubted that politics was as
rough-and-tumble as anything I see on the sporting fields. Still, for
all the name-calling and smear tactics of presidential campaigns
present and past, never have I witnessed such a low blow as the one
inflicted on Hillary Clinton last night. And this one apparently didn't
come from the Obama camp, but from anonymous Democrats, who compared
the New York senator to Tonya Harding. According to ABC's Jake Tapper,
they believe she is pursuing "the Tonya Harding option"--kneecapping your rival so that he can't win. Maureen Dowd
took the notion a step further in today's New York Times, suggesting
that Clinton knows she can't win the nomination and her only hope for
the presidency she so desperately covets is to make Obama unelectable
against McCain--so that she can reemerge as the party's savior in four
years.
Calling Sen. Clinton "a monster"
is one thing, but giving a name and face--especially that name and that
face--to the monster is far worse. I don't know Sen. Clinton, but I
sure do know Tonya whose career I covered extensively. And she was a
true guttersnipe, a compulsive liar and cheat. The kneecapping of Tonya's rival,
Nancy Kerrigan, just before the 1994 U.S. Nationals in Detroit was
carried out by Tonya's proxies, a band of stooges led by her former
husband. With Kerrigan sidelined by a low blow from a baseball bat,
Harding went on to win the national title and her more important
goal--a spot on the U.S. Olympic team for Lillehammer.
Those lacking an intimate knowledge of the sport often wondered why
such desperate measures were necessary, when finishing second would
have enabled Harding to make the Olympic team anyway. But figure
skating can be like horse racing. When a horse knows it is running
against another horse that is out of its class, it can't compete as
well. Had Kerrigan taken the ice in Detroit, Harding would have been
pushed harder and, as she did so frequently those days (and would do
again at the Olympics in Norway), would likely have crashed and
burned--and stayed home for the Olympics.
Of course, the mess wound up in court, where the best efforts of the
U.S. Olympic Committee failed to get Harding banned from the American
team. And Tonya, who was unabashedly unashamed, got the worldwide
showcase she wanted. Though her Olympic performance was a debacle, the
whole affair kept her career alive as a carnival act and a handy perennial for the lowest reaches of reality TV, In other words,
kneecapping essentially worked for Tonya as a competitive and career
strategy. We may have to wait another four years to find out just how
effective a political strategy it turns out to be.
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