It is hard to think that the “You’re nuts to take her” faction of Barack Obama’s advisors didn’t get a boost with Hillary Clinton’s Kennedy assassination gaffe. As one who knows the Clintons’ pathology all too well pointed out:

Obama now has the perfect excuse not to pick Hillary as his running mate. She has been too unseemly in her desire to be on the scene if he trips, or gets hit with a devastating story. She may want to take a cue from the Miss America contest: make a graceful, magnanimous exit and wait in the wings.

Really, it is one thing to live through a year of campaigning while the Clintonian attack machine directed barbs his way (he had no choice in the matter), but to voluntarily sign up for four or eight years of life with the Clintons would take an act of masochism or unparalled naïveté. Would any Democratic establishment figure really begrudge him the luxury of choosing someone who didn’t muse, even indirectly, about the prospect of a presidential assassination?

Yes, it is true Clinton may manage to get more popular votes than he, and she has been the superior campaigner in the second half of the race. Oh, and yes, as compared to her he really does have some demographic disadvantages. But bringing her along for the rest of the campaign seems designed only to highlight his own dependencies and weaknesses. “She can help him with white voters” and “He would have risked the female vote without her” are the type of semi-insulting observations which surely would follow if he tapped her as VP. Moreover, would there be a better way to demonstrate that he will tolerate virtually any insulting, obnoxious behavior?

So I suspect Obama’s graciousness over the assassination gaffe is thinly disguised relief. He can finally get out of a shotgun wedding he must have dreaded.