And It Begins, Ladies And Gentlemen

Yesterday's story that Hillary Clinton did not see herself as a two-term Secretary of State under Obama was bound to generate the next obvious question, I just didn't think it would be this quickly.  The Village has fired the first shot in the Hillary Plan 2012 war.  Enter US News's Peter Roff on Hillary:

She is not, unsurprisingly, speaking publicly about her intentions beyond saying, as she told PBS's Tavis Smiley in an interview that airs Wednesday night, that she is "absolutely not interested" in running again for president of the United States. But in the same interview Clinton also allows that her current job is a difficult and time-consuming one and that, while she is honored to have it, she cannot see herself serving in the same post in a second Obama administration.

The ongoing decline in the president's approval ratings has more than a few Democrats concerned. The Democratic defeats in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial elections and the Massachusetts Senate race have a number of them running scared, in much the same way that the party's poor performance in 1978 helped propel Sen. Edward M. Kennedy forward to challenge incumbent President Jimmy Carter in 1980.

The chatter has increased in recent days about Clinton leaving the cabinet sometime in the first term, likely over some matter of principle, so that she can position herself to challenge Obama in 2012. Perhaps it is just wishful thinking on the part of those Democrats who have already grown tired of Obama. What is true is that Clinton can still mobilize the political infrastructure necessary to mount an effective challenge to the sitting president. A primary challenge against a sitting president whose approval numbers are above 50 percent and one mounted against an incumbent who is below 50 percent are two very different things, a fact of which the Clinton political team is surely aware.

And so it begins.  How long until the Village turns this into The Story Of 2010?

My guess is it won't take long.  An Obama/Hillary "fight" for the next three years?  You can hear the fapping already.  And somewhere, Karl Rove has his fingers steepled and is saying "eeeeeeexcellent."