A simple truth lies in plain view... To wit, let's not assume it's the national electorate that's so unready for a female president. A fired-up Clinton was catching on pretty good toward the end, winning major primaries in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas. But the upper echelons of the political establishment, which she had reason to believe were on her side, had other ideas. "They" decided she was too divisive, even as she competed well in the field.

To a man, many of Clinton's friends and allies in the Senate reached out to the talented but untested freshman senator from Illinois, urging Barack Obama to run for president. Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York was one of these; so was Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. Highly respected Tom Daschle, a former majority leader, urged Obama to seize the moment and promised to advise him. For the most part, these conversations were held in private in "a conspiracy of whispers," as Heilemann and Halperin put it. When the late Sen. Edward Kennedy went public with a full-throated roar of endorsement, then the extent of Obama's support by the clubby Senate Democrats became clear.

For Obama, that was almost as sweet as winning the Iowa caucuses. But for Clinton, it was finding out that "friends" can make the most insidious foes of all.

Was it a betrayal, as the authors call it, by Clinton's Senate colleagues? Perhaps, but it wasn't just politics as usual. I see it in shades of gender as well as politics. Older men often like to champion and mentor younger men who remind them of their youth. Given a choice between anointing a political peer, a woman, and an outstanding younger African American (12 years younger), it wasn't even close. Obama was their pick.

The moral: The glass houses of Congress need more cracking, too, with their ceilings as high as the Capitol dome.