Right now, it appears as though Hillary Clinton still has roughly the same chance of being the Democratic nominee as the Confederacy had of winning the Civil War on the day before Lee's surrender at Appomatox Courthouse. Lee had received orders from Jefferson Davis to disperse the Army of Northern Virginia to get them past the Union lines, and then to continue to fight a guerilla war in the mountains. There's a book, April 1865: The Month That Saved America, of which that episode forms a big part.
But Lee and his top subordinate generals had been horrified at the carnage that had accompanied guerilla war in Kansas, Kentucky, and West Virginia, looked at the situation, realized that it was over, and that their obligation to the people of the South, and indeed of the entire country that they had considered theirs until a few years previously, was to accept reality with dignity and grace, and not to cause any more useless carnage.
We all know what happened the next day, but what's not so We all know what happened the next day, but what's not so widely known is what happened not long after that. When I first heard this story, it sounded apocryphal to me, but I've since read that it was contemporaneously noted. Lee, now returned to civilian life, attended an Episcopal church service back in Richmond. Previously, the slaves and free blacks who had attended the services had sat in the balcony, and had taken communion after all of the whites. But this time, apparently believing that emancipation meant more than it would (other than during the immediate Reconstruction period) for roughly another hundred years, an elderly freed slave approached the communion rail ahead of many of the white parishioners, including Robert E. Lee.
There was obvious shock at this, and initially no white parishioners approached the communion rail to take communion (which in the Episcopal tradition is from a common cup) after him. And then, Robert E. Lee walked down the aisle and kneeled at the rail, and the rest of the congregation followed his lead. Lee fought for what I'm convinced was a horribly misguided cause, but he did it with sincerety, and courage, and then he knew when the fight was over, and how to lose in a manner that didn't compound the already serious consequences of the war. As a result, he is regarded as a hero, even by many who, like me, find the cause for which he fought utterly repugnant.
Hillary Clinton still has time, but not much time, to model her conduct on that of Robert E. Lee, and recognize that the outcome is clear, and that it's time to declare the fight over and to try to heal the wounds before more damage is needlessly done. But she also has another historical example, that might be even more instructive.
In the last days of World War II in Europe, it was obviously over for the German military. Their lines had collapsed on both the Western and Eastern Fronts, and Soviet troops were already in parts of Berlin. But instead of facing reality (which clearly would have been far less kind to him personally than it was to Robert E. Lee, but which might at least have spared the German people more useless agony), he sat in his bunker issuing orders to divisions that had largely ceased to exist, spinning imaginary scenarios for victory, and ordering that the subways be flooded to prevent Soviet troops from advancing through them, even though he knew that thousands of civilians were using them as shelters from the artillery and aerial bombardments. As a result of his conduct at the end of the war, he would have become an object of scorn and hatred, even had it not been for the enormous evil that preceded those days.
The choice before Hillary is clear, and it is stark: Does she want to emulate Jefferson Davis or Adolph Hitler at the end of their wars, refusing to admit the existence of reality and pointlessly seeking to continue the fight and thus compound the damage that has already been sustained, or does she want to emulate Robert E. Lee, recognize that she has lost, and seek to make the best of her changed circumstances? (And please note that I am NOT comparing Hillary to Adolph Hitler in ANY respect other than what seems to be a stubborn refusal to recognize the reality of her situation at the end of a long and bruising fight.)
There are voices tonight urging her to send the Army of Northern Virginia into the mountains and continue to fight a guerilla war, that are urging her to order the flooding of the Berlin subways. Ben Smith is reporting tonight in Politico.com that in a conference call with donors today, Harold Ickes told them that Hillary isn't dropping out, and that he urged them to stay united and keep raising money. Her state finance committee chairs are apparently circulating letters urging her to stay in and fight it all the way to the Convention. One such letter, from the chairman of her Illinois finance committee, contained the following:
Senator Clinton is ahead in the popular vote, and neither candidate can secure the nomination with pledged delegates alone. The automatic delegates can change their mind up until their vote at the convention, and that is why this nominating process must be resolved in August, and no earlier.
The choice is up to her: Accept defeat with dignity and grace, and spare the party a fight that will sap its strength in November and may well make John McCain the next President, or continue her fight all the way to the Convention, hoping that SOMEHOW, something will happen to enable her to capture the nomination. I honestly don't think she'll make the right one, but I pray that I'm wrong.