Hillary “At All Costs” Clinton continues to press for the delegates who were “elected” from Florida and Michigan to be seated at the Democratic National Convention.

The latest development is an e-mail petition circulated by the Clinton campaign. The email declaims:

It is a bedrock American principle: we are all equal in the voting booth. No matter where you were born or how much money you were born into, no matter the color of your skin or where you worship, your vote deserves to count.

But millions of people in Florida and Michigan who went to the polls aren’t being heard. The delegates they elected won’t be seated at the Democratic National Convention in Denver this August — and that’s just not fair to those voters.

Candidates running for political office are, of course, expected to make self-serving statements. But there’s a point at which self-serving statements cross the line and become unacceptable dishonesty. As far as I’m concerned, Hillary Clinton crossed that line long ago.

Not only that, she also insults our intelligence when she dishonestly ignores the fact that millions of people in Florida and Michigan did not bother to vote only because the Democratic party had announced in no uncertain terms that the results of the election would not count. Don’t they deserve to have their votes count too, by the same bedrock principle?

It was a mock election, Hillary. Mock elections shouldn’t count. Counting them makes a mockery of the whole election process, of the bedrock principles which you claim to hold so sacrosanct.

Apparently, as far as Hillary’s concerned, your vote deserves to count only if it can be used to increase her delegate count at Obama’s expense. That seems to be her only real principle; everything else is strategy and window dressing.

(What’s kind of funny is that two weeks ago, Hillary was using almost the identical language to press her case for a re-vote in Michigan. In that context, the language made some sense. In the context of seating the originally “elected” delegates, though, it’s blatantly dishonest.)

I’ve come to the conclusion that there is entirely too much George Bush in Hillary Clinton for my liking. And I’m damned if I want any more of George Bush in the Oval Office in any guise, whether it’s the John McCain incarnation or the Hillary Clinton one.

Foon Rhee, writing in the Boston Globe‘s “Political Intelligence” blog about this petition, starts the post by saying: “You can’t blame her for trying.” I think you jolly well can. And I think you should.