David Brooks in The New York Times on Hillary Clinton’s hopes for the presidency:

“The door is closing. Night is coming. The end, however, is not near.

“Last week, an important Clinton adviser told Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen (also of Politico) that Clinton had no more than a 10 percent chance of getting the nomination. Now, she’s probably down to a 5 percent chance.

“Five percent.

“Let’s take a look at what she’s going to put her party through for the sake of that 5 percent chance: The Democratic Party is probably going to have to endure another three months of daily sniping. For another three months, we’ll have the Carvilles likening the Obamaites to Judas and former generals accusing Clintonites of McCarthyism. For three months, we’ll have the daily round of resume padding and sulfurous conference calls. We’ll have campaign aides blurting ‘blue dress’ and only-because-he’s-black references as they let slip their private contempt.

“For three more months (maybe more!) the campaign will proceed along in its Verdun-like pattern. There will be a steady rifle fire of character assassination from the underlings, interrupted by the occasional firestorm of artillery when the contest touches upon race, gender or patriotism. The policy debates between the two have been long exhausted, so the only way to get the public really engaged is by poking some raw national wound.

“For the sake of that 5 percent, this will be the sourest spring.”

Brooks adds:

“The only question is whether Clinton herself can step outside the apparatus long enough to turn it off and withdraw voluntarily or whether she will force the rest of her party to intervene and jam the gears.”

Boston Globe columnist Derrick Z. Jackson on the Obama-Jeremiah Wright saga: 

“Clinton has her own free pass (on the race issue). She repeatedly has had to dump surrogates for stereotyping Obama. She once led Obama among black voters, yet has lost almost all of them with her camp’s tactics. Yet she faces no pressure to reveal her racial views. And she certainly is offering none in the upcoming Pennsylvania primary, where surrogate and Governor Ed Rendell says, ‘You’ve got conservative whites here and I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate.’ ”

“Once again, America’s white leaders play footsie with white intolerance while Obama was pressured to bring the nation the head of Jeremiah Wright. Once again, a black person holds the nation’s bag of racial burdens.”

Click here to read the whole thing.