Hillary Clinton will run for president if and when she pleases. But given all the hints, rumors and pure speculation that constantly trail her while she globe-trots on official Secretary of State business, there's little she can do to put the gossip to rest. Except, of course, say point blank that she has no plans to run for president. Which she almost does to New Zealand's TV3 News when asked if she ruled out "standing for top U.S. office through 2016":

Clinton, according to a U.S. reporter, replied: "Oh yes, yes. I'm very pleased to be doing what I'm doing as secretary of state." In a separate interview with TV New Zealand, Clinton said she hoped the United States was ready for a female president, adding "it should be." Asked if it might be her, she replied: "Well, not me. But it will be someone..."

New York magazine's Daily Intel spotted Hillary's non-denial denial and fed her boilerplate response into a device they call the "Politispeak Translator 5000." Here, according to Daily Intel, is what she really meant:

"I almost definitely won't run again, but if the conditions are perfect and I think I can win, and I still have the drive, hell yeah I'd do it. And not that America will even care that I had been saying for six years that I wouldn't run again, but I'll at least need some kind of flimsy explanation, so I'll just say that I had only ruled it out before because I was so focused on being secretary of State."

She'll have to pry the Democratic nomination out of Joe Biden's hands first.

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Erik Hayden