It's been a long time since there's been this strong a disconnect between the received Beltway wisdom about a politician's attributes and, well, reality.

OK, not that long. Only seven years, actually. Then, we had a widely-perceived-as-bumbling president, George W. Bush, mediocre to poor in the polls, whose defining attributes in Summer 2001 were a stolen election, corporate cronyism (remember Enron?), and an alleged lack of intelligence. Four jets get hijacked, and, presto! Bush is intelligent, statesman-like, savvy, a voice for all Americans whose every gesture is infallible. He rode the ensuing political capital all the way to another stolen election in 2004, having never wavered from being the same not-very-bright, unprincipled corporate crony he always was.

Perhaps Hillary Clinton thought she could pull the same trick. Eighteen months ago, her ascendancy to, certainly, the Democratic nomination, and, almost as certainly, the presidency, was "inevitable." She ran on her alleged experience--not just as a senator (where rivals such as Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd actually had far more experience), but as First Lady. (By the same logic, Laura Bush should be priming for a 2016 run.) Her campaign team was openly touted as so well-disciplined and organized that no mistakes would ever be made, and her lead would be unassailable. The entire apparatus of the senior echelons of the Democratic Party seemed united behind her.

So what happens? A young first-term senator out-organized her, out-fundraised her, and, most importantly, was far more inspiring than she was to tens of millions of Americans--not just through his lofty words, but through the very concrete act of developing a campaign organization that made countless newly active citizens feel like they had an important, vital role in the campaign.

How did this happen? How did a candidacy and candidate once viewed as not only inevitable but a historic breakthrough--the first woman president!--fall apart at the hands of a far less experienced rival? The answer, I think, lies not among the issues (as many have noted, ideologically they're both essentially badly flawed corporate centrists who've made occasional tacks left during the primary season), but with a very simple truth. Barack Obama is very, very good at what he does. Hillary Clinton--against all perceived wisdom, and as with George Bush in Fall 2001--is not.

The list of points at which Clinton and her campaign simply should have known better is, item by item, fairly familiar, but in the aggregate astounding. A few lowlights:

* The eight years as a senator somehow morphing into "35 years of public service" as a political wife, lawyer, and corporate board member;

* The notion that she'd somehow been "vetted" as a candidate without having ever won a closely contested election at any level, and while the husband of a sitting US Senator quietly raked in tens of millions in corporate fees after their much-scrutinized White House years;

* The failure to adjust to and mimic Obama's groundbreaking Internet structure, which turned into a huge Obama advantage throughout the campaign;

* The idiocy of Clinton's manufactured stage tears, a "humanization" that happened exactly twice: just before the last news cycles preceding the New Hampshire primary and Super Tuesday, respectively (And never repeated. Coincidence? Right.);

* The inexplicable, arrogant campaign failure to plan beyond Super Tuesday;

* The multiple shakeups of campaign leadership;

* What Kos (of Daily Kos fame) memorably labeled the "insult 40 state strategy," of claiming that the preferences of Democratic voters outside a few big states didn't matter;

* Race-baiting by multiple campaign surrogates, including Geraldine Ferraro and hubby Bill, a tactic that backfired in the South but has surely helped with Clinton's overwhelming popularity in Appalachia;

* "Hard-working Americans, white Americans";

* The shameless pandering (consistent with her Senate career, and most recently with the laughable idea of a gas tax holiday);

* The preposterous notion that the prep-school-and-Yale-educated wife in a $109-million-income marriage is a gun-loving, hard-living working class stiff;

* The multiple favorable comparisons of John McCain to Obama;

* Transparently trying to game the system in Michigan and Florida;

* The constant cries of sexist victimization by both Clinton and her supporters (about which, more shortly);

* The bizarre refusal as the campaign has dragged on to acknowledge, you know, math, regarding delegate counts;

* And, now, repulsively invoking the specter of Obama's assassination as a reason to stay in the race.

What the fuck? This is the "experienced" candidate? The campaign machine that can do no wrong? Campaigning for a job in which the world scrutinizes your every utterance and gesture for four or eight long years? And when, after the disaster that has been Dubya, the need for competence is especially great and the scrutiny especially harsh?

If you didn't know better, you'd swear that it was the seemingly unflappable Obama that had the "35 years of experience," and Clinton who was the neophyte. At some point, beyond ideology, stances on issues, or the bickering of campaign politics, the perceived wisdom of Hillary Clinton as a standard-bearer for political competence and gravitas needs to be not only questioned, but upended, and exposed for what it is: the product of an utterly fictitious marketing ploy.

Sadly, a lot of this has been obscured by gender and sexism. Clinton's supporters have charged, rightly, that some of the media coverage of her campaign has been grossly condescending and offensive. (Conversely, Clinton's campaign has leveraged those complaints into coverage in recent months that has treated her campaign as though it had a serious mathematical chance to win when it had none.) Like some Clinton supporters on the matter of race, a few Obama supporters have made unholy alliances with portions of the far right, in this case the misogynist Hillary-hating fringes. And it is undeniable that as the only Western democracy that has never elected a female leader, the fact that the US has never even come close to having a woman president before now and even has a seriously deficient bench of future possibilities (Condi Rice? You're joking, right?) is truly appalling.

Alas, too many Clinton supporters and women's groups, in a display that has probably set organized feminism back decades, have blamed sexism and misogyny for all of Clinton's woes--though most, as with the list above, are self-inflicted.

None of the very real bigotry Clinton has faced changes an underlying lesson of this long, painful Democratic campaign, a lesson that has nothing to do with either gender or race: Hillary Clinton, separate of her husband (and unlike many women leaders) has revealed herself to be neither a very good politician nor a very good executive.

As such, regardless of her gender or any other considerations, she should be allowed nowhere near the presidency.

The old saw is that the easiest way for an incompetent to get a million dollars is to start with two million. Same with votes. In order to compete on a level playing field, another clichÈ goes, women and minorities have to be twice as good as their white male rivals. Obama, in this campaign--setting aside concerns about how he would govern--has been twice as good. Clinton: not even half. And that's why we will go at least another four years without a woman president.