You’re Hillary Clinton, and ever since you became the First Lady of Arkansas, you’ve been accustomed to getting what you want, when you want it.

From virtually Day 1 upon your entry into the national spotlight, you strived to carve out a reputation of being smart, savvy, and, most importantly, your own woman. But I’ll bet you were never more smart and savvy than that day years before when you made the decision to hop on your husband’s coattails to get you where you wanted to be, even though you probably already knew then from your marriage that, in doing so, you had made a deal with the devil.

For, as much as you’ve always tried to stress how independent you are, truth is, without your husband, you’d be nowhere near where you are today. After all, it was him that gave you the opportunity to step out on your own with that cockamamie national health insurance study group, and him who gave you the necessary cover when you screwed that thing up to no end. Then, curiously enough, largely out of the public’s sympathy for you following that Lewinsky thing, you were allowed to put such unpleasantries as Vince Foster and Whitewater, and the White House travel office debacle behind you so to position yourself for that New York Senate run. And, is there any doubt that without your husband’s significant network of friends and benefactors your election there would not have been possible?

And that’s where, I think, your problems began. Because ever since then, as you’ve tried to distance yourself from your husband and carve out an identity of your own, slowly but increasingly, you’ve also revealed yourself as someone who never took notes on your husband’s incomparable political instincts, someone all too willing to bend to whichever way the political winds are blowing at the time. Before the U.S. invaded Iraq, to show just how tough you could be, few in your party used rhetoric as forceful as yours (Hat tip: The Tar Pit) stating that Saddam Hussein and his regime had to go. And, as your eyes on that 2008 presidential prize grew ever bigger, you doggedly held on to the center, even as a slow trickle of Democrats opposing the war turned into a deluge. After all, to keep as many potential 2008 voters in play, you felt you had to keep all your options open. And you got too careful; tried to play it too safe.

Enter Barack Obama.

Suddenly, almost overnight, you’re no longer the dynamic and forward-looking idealist in the race, but a sad, tired throwback to those pre-9/11 days of the Clinton Years. And now you’re thrashing about like a marlin on a line, trying anything and everything you can to alter the perception that your campaign for the Presidency is starting to go south. Which, BTW, is something you simply cannot afford to let happen, since your margin for error is already mighty slim, given your horrendous disapproval numbers.

Evacuate the center and tack back to the left? Bad idea, ’cause, if you hadn’t noticed while you were gone, that spot got taken. And then some. Telling a group of lefty moonbats in San Francisco that you’re gonna take the oil companies’ profits and put them towards alternative forms of energy might play well on the Left Coast, but it scared the crap out of those so-called “independent” voters you cherish so. And if you thought your Johnny-come-lately appearance at the Iraq troop withdrawal dance would smooth the ruffled feathers of the anti-war left, think again.

You’re Hillary Clinton, and you’ve fallen into a trap of your own making. A trap, because once people stop believing (if they ever really believed) your sincerity about your beliefs, you have nowhere else to go but down. Remember that, politically, you’ve already got more baggage than the cargo hold of a fully-loaded Airbus 340. Want proof? Ask Hollywood, or the AP and CNN, or, perhaps most problematically, Maureen Dowd (Hat tip: Drudge). If this keeps up, the only recourse you’ll have left is to drag your husband – coattails firmly attached – out in front of audiences to remind them of the successes “Bill and I” had years ago, and those issues “Bill and I” stand for. And if (and when) that happens, consider yourself finished, done like dinner.

You’re Hillary Clinton, and you’re wondering how the heck things got so screwed up so fast.