The more presumptive Barack Obama's nomination becomes -- which should serve to unify and strengthen the party -- the more presumptuous Hillary Clinton's campaign becomes -- which serves only to divide and weaken the party. But whether you find that bilateral paradox frustrating or fatiguing, you have to admit the Clinton camp's singular presumptuousness is also quite fascinating. In itself it has become our political "Show of Shows," pretty much the only thing readers care to read, or viewers view.

I give you, case in point, Clinton camp-follower Gov. Ed Rendell, who appeared yesterday on "Meet the Press" only to utter some of the most manifestly absurd, politically presumptuous rhetoric ever to hit the airwaves. And that's saying a lot. Even the normally unflappable Tim Russert was ... flapped?

The fun began when host Russert asked [1] surrogate Rendell what the former foolishly framed as a "simple question" -- that being if superdelegates might still reject every known model of democratic leverage and hand the nomination to the loser, Hillary. Rendell was positively perky in his provisional deception: "Sure," Tim. "It depends on what trends are happening. And number one, Hillary Clinton's ahead in electoral votes, states carried with the most electoral votes, number one. Number two, popular vote, I think the popular vote will narrow decidedly in the next seven or eight contests. And if you count Florida and Michigan, in truth, Hillary Clinton would've won the popular vote."

At that, Russert went as ballistic as NBC's legal department permits. It was, as they say, a hoot: "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait," bleated Russert. "Stop there. Stop there, Governor, because Senator Clinton tried that yesterday, in terms of [moving] the goalposts. This is what she said in Oregon about Florida and Michigan." And this, indeed, is what she said:

"Now, some say their votes should be ignored and that the popular vote in Michigan and Florida should just be discounted. Well, I have a different view. The popular vote in Florida and Michigan has already been counted. It was determined by election results. It was certified by election officials in each state. It's been officially tallied by the secretary of state in each state."

Russert then reminded Rendell of what Hillary said last year: "You know, it's clear this election they're having in Michigan is not going to count for anything." Not only that, Russert then quoted Rendell on Rendell from that far saner era: "You can't make any argument in Michigan because Hillary was the only person who was on the ballot. I'm as avid a Hillary supporter as there is, but I don't think we can make an argument in Michigan."

So Russert had him dead to rights, right? No way out? Cornered like a rodent pol? Not really, because Rendell's absolute perfection of presumptuousness had yet to kick in. "I think," he began with questionable wording, "that I was talking about seating the delegates. You can't seat the delegates in Michigan because she had no one on the ballot against her. You certainly should seat the delegates from Florida, where she won by 300,000 votes.... But we can ... settle it right now. Let's revote in Michigan and Florida. We're willing. The Clinton campaign is willing to test our popular vote mandate. Let's revote in Florida and Michigan. What's wrong with that?"

I hope you've made it this far, for we've now arrived at the best, most staggeringly presumptuous part. Russert: "But, Governor, I want to make sure I got this down. You've said you can't seat the delegates in Michigan, but you can count the popular vote, even though Obama wasn't on the ballot?"

OK. Are you ready for this? Rendell: "Right, because, Tim, you're running against yourself. That's the hardest thing. You can ask any politician. What's the hardest contest to run against? It's [for instance] Bob Casey vs. we don't like Bob Casey. [Yet] Hillary Clinton got 55 percent of the vote in Michigan."

Now I put it to you: Have you ever heard anything so stupendously idiotic? What Gov. Rendell just said, in all purported sincerity, is that the toughest political race for any pol is the one in which he or she runs unopposed. Go ahead, just ask any politician.

These are the sordidly argumentative lengths the Clinton camp is willing to go; the demagogic depths to which it's willing to sink. Even "presumptuous" fails to capture their intelligence-insulting essence.

You may have noted that Rendell also contradicted his own candidate in calling for a revote, since she has already pronounced the illegitimate popular-vote counts as "certified," "officially tallied" and therefore, mutatis mutandis, legitimate. 

And just to muddy up the waters even more, in suggesting that revotes should be staged -- even though, remember, the original votes are now "certified" -- Rendell innocently asked, "What's wrong with that?" Actually, such fork-tongued graciousness harbors a huge but never-mentioned, what's-wrong-with-that problem. At this point, even if technically possible a revote in either state would be a grossly unfair fight, since vast swaths of voters in both states have been unceasingly brainwashed by one camp that the other camp much prefers to exclude their voice. That underhanded toothpaste can't be put back in the tube. Had Clinton never contrived it as an issue, a revote might indeed be a plausible if not the proper thing to do. But not now.

What is clearer today than yesterday is that Obama will be the nominee, and tomorrow that will be even clearer. That is no longer the issue or concern. The real problem now arising for the Democratic Party is that Hillary is toiling to convince a critically marginal number of her supporters that Obama's coming nomination will not be on the up-and-up -- that it was, in mysteriously assorted ways, stolen, and that "They was robbed."

In short, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, is systematically delegitimizing the Democratic Party's presidential nominee. I have never seen anything like it -- and it is genuinely fascinating in all its paradoxical squalor.