And starring Hillary Clinton as Tony Soprano

"Sheer brilliance"? Gee, I suppose -- if handing your opponents a loaded shotgun falls in the same category:

Hillary walks into the Mount Kisco diner in Westchester, N.Y., and takes a seat. Seconds later in comes Bill, dressed in a short-sleeved, untucked shirt. "No onion rings?" Bill asks when he sees that his wife has ordered a bowl of carrots. "I'm looking out for you," replies Hillary, who peruses the diner's jukebox selections, the same tunes voted on by her campaign supporters. Tina Turner's "The Best." KT Tunstall's "Suddenly I See." Smash Mouth's "I'm a Believer." Bill says he thinks Smash Mouth will win. "We'll see," Hillary says.

Then the camera fades to black.

You don't suppose this is the end for her campaign, do you?

Naaahh. We couldn't be so lucky.

Clinton's camp is pushing hard for video cred, and yesterday's effort is proof. Forget that the self-inflicted analogy -- the Clintons as the Sopranos -- might be too irresistible for her detractors.

Guilty, Your Honor.

And for hard-core fans, the video might bring to mind the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In the show's third season, Carmela, wife of the philandering Tony, talks about her admiration for how Hillary handled her marital woes. "She's a role model for all of us," Carmela tells her gussied-up gal pals.

Another association the junior senator from New York couldn't have missed.

"It shows that Hillary Clinton is very adeptly using the Internet to humanize herself."

As if the Clintons haven't been "humanized" enough as it is.

"Yet the jury's out on whether everybody finds it charming that they're self-effacing or that they are in fact drawing a parallel that is really ironic and not flattering regarding what's seen as the liabilities of the Clintons. That they're very aggressive in trying to scare away donors from other campaigns. The perception that they engage in strong-arm tactics. Still, you have to hand it to Hillary. You can't get more Joe Sixpack than Tony Soprano."

Then again, nothing is more anti-Tony Soprano than Celine Dion.

Bada bing.

Update: Firedoglake has a response to a truly unhinged right-wing reaction to the video.

Update II (6/21): Prairie Weather:

Maybe the "vast right-wing conspiracy" stuffed the electronic ballot box with votes for a tune by a French-Canadian diva most famous for presiding, musically speaking, over the sinking of the Titanic.

Speaking of people thinking about running for political office

... there's several places in the mainstream media (here's one -- scroll down to near the end -- here's another) where my good friend and birthday buddy Barbara Radnofsky is indicating that she might run for Texas Attorney General in 2010. I thought I'd ask my man David what he thought about that, so I e-mailed him the following questions:

Q: Barbara Radnofsky reports she is considering a run for attorney general of Texas in 2010. Are you going to campaign for that office as well -- or will you support her candidacy if you don't?

Q. On the assumption that you will run for AG, why should Democrats vote for you in a primary election (three years from now) instead of Radnofsky? What are the differences you would highlight between you?

And here's his response:

A. I would like to answer the two questions together if that's OK. Barbara is my friend. We both have our strengths and we both have our weaknesses. Any political race between us in a Democratic primary would be enjoyable for the two of us and would give Democratic voters a good choice between two good Democrats and two good lawyers. Beyond that, I really think it's too early to be talking about 2010. Talking about 2010 will distract our focus from the job we have to do in 2008. We have to carry our state in 2008 and that is where we need to be concentrating our attention.

As Charles Kuffner would say: make of that what you will. Or maybe "stay tuned". Or both.