As I try to read the current political tea leaves, I see a strange paradox for Senator Clinton.

The apparent disarray shown by the Clinton campaign since Iowa suggests a lack of leadership skills in the face of an unexpected twist of fate.

So you have three odd strikes against Senator Clinton:

1. Her touted experience was fooled by Bush in the first Iraq vote — as were many others, but not her inexperienced opponent and a very few others. It also suggests her husband was just as fooled.

2. She appears to be flustered in the face of an unexpected outcome.

3. The worse Bush does, the worse the Senator appears to do.

I wonder how many folks have connected these dots and are looking for a new political narrative in the new century?

Is Bush, in fact, the last of the 20th century presidents? In some ways the grotesque failure of his presidency is a devastating critique of late 20th century political dogma. A result, I suspect, is that Bush’s failure dooms the candidacy of Senator Clinton in that she is seen as a powerful artifact of the century and politics the country wants no more of. Thus it is not Clinton fatigue that is her problem, but her strong association with a century and political dogma the country now rejects: baby, bath water and all. This is made worse by the close ties now seen between Bush 1 and Clinton 1. The drowning Bush pulls Clinton down with him. The message I am seeing in the tea leaves is “A pox on both your houses.” Senator Clinton’s current troubles are, in large part, the collateral damage of the failed Bush presidency.

In a word, the more President Bush fails, the higher Obama rises and the worse Senator Clinton does. It is quite the paradox that the failure of Bush almost insures a Democratic president in 2009, but appears to equally block Senator Clinton in her quest for that prize.

Did Obama sense this or just have exceedingly lucky timing? Would he have been successful if Bush had been less of a failure?

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