Sheila Jackson Lee: stuck on the wrong side of history

See the picture up there?
This was just after the next-to-last Democratic presidential debate in Austin last week. The crowd, as usual, flocked to the stage to get their autographs.

That's the custom these days. Get that autograph, A piece of history.

But see that lady there in the flowered print outfit, at the feet of Sen. Barack Obama?

That's Sheila Jackson Lee, congresswoman from Houston's 18th Congressional District, who just happens to be a co-chair of Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

In the brief moments this picture flickered across CNN, it was impossible to tell if the autograph Obama was signing was for Sheila, whose glad-handing and autograph-seeking at the State of the Union address is as regular as the annual flight pattern of all migratory birds.

But let's assume the congresslady observed a smidgen of decorum at this moment and resisted the urge to ask the next president for an autograph.

What do you suppose she was thinking?

Here what I think she was thinking ...

"You magnificent bastard. You magnificent bastard Barack Obama. What in the hell am I gonna tell people 30 years from now, when my great nieces and nephews, when the children and grandchildren of my constituents, ask me, `Ms. Jackson, what'd you do in the great presidential race of O-8? What am I gonna say? What can I say? I was shovelin' shit for a woman named Hillary Clinton? I was carryin' water for a white lady senator from NEW YORK? Yeah, I guess that about sums it up."