It’s official. Team Hillary has hit the panic button.  Out comes the heavy artillery.

No, not Marx: insufferable fat guy with a heavy beard spouting gibberish in convoluted German – something or other about the proletariat.

No, not Alinsky: Marx lite, already used up by that other guy – you know, pretends to work in the White House when not pretending to be a golfer.

No, not the race hustlers: Reverend Jesse, Reverend Al, and assorted copycats living high on the hog – white chicks don’t matter now that “their guy” is history.

Enter Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936).  Ivan who?  Nobody interviewed on “Watters’ World” or “Jaywalking” would have heard of him.

But if you look him up, you’ll discover that Pavlov was an important scientist back in the day.  He was considered important enough to be awarded the Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine in 1904 “in recognition of his work on the physiology of digestion, through which knowledge on vital aspects of the subject has been transformed and enlarged.”

What Pavlov is famous for, however, is what came to be known as the “conditioned reflex.”  To oversimplify, the idea is that behavior – human or animal – is just response to a stimulus.  To produce the “desired” behavior, provide the “right” stimulus.  Pavlov got dogs to salivate by ringing a bell, whether food was there or not.

So if you want to change how people think or express themselves in public, Pavlovian methods can help.  All you have to do it restrict word usage to an “approved” dictionary, reward such usage appropriately (Soros funding, tenure, Time magazine covers), and punish transgressions severely (more severely than “no soup for you.”)

The law of unintended consequences being what it is, Pavlov could only sit by and watch his ideas get perverted by Nazis and Communists, whom he held in contempt.  George Orwell’s famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four shows what can happen when Big Brother institutionalizes Pavlovian methods.  Yes, Orwell knew about Pavlov.

Which brings me to the present.     

More than any president in history, Barack Obama – known to be thin-skinned – has sought immunity from criticism at all costs.  The race-card drumbeat, sounded time and again by an obedient MSM and other fellow travelers, is a Pavlovian-Orwellian tactic.  So is IRS targeting of conservative groups designed to produce a “chilling effect.”  

As for Clinton – in hot water over unauthorized use of computers and deletion of records, which are not going away any time soon – the bright (dim?) bulbs seeking her coronation have decided to give Pavlov-Orwell a try, too.  We have been warned in no uncertain terms to avoid “sexist” language.  The gender card has replaced the race card, with a vengeance.

Thus, in an e-mail to 120 journalists, John West, director of the group "HRC Super Volunteers," warned: "You are on notice that we will be watching, reading, listening and protesting coded sexism[.]”  The following terminology is, as Germans would put it, streng verboten in reference to Hillary Clinton: polarizing, calculating, disingenuous, insincere, ambitious, manipulative, will do anything to win, represents the past, out of touch, inevitable, entitled, overconfident, defiant, secretive, imperious, devious, petulant, defensive – as well as any comments on her appearance.

So, what adjectives would West consider appropriate in reference to Hillary Clinton?  Try these on for size: remarkable, accomplished, hardworking, tenacious, resilient, smart, admired, respected...  You get the idea.

Frankly, if you ask me, West is shortchanging Clinton.  Benghazi proved that her foreign policy credentials are impeccable.  The e-mails controversy proved she is an expert in computer science.  The cattle futures bonanza proved she is a stock-market genius.  The Monica Lewinsky scandal proved that Hillary has a forgiving heart.  Landing in Serbia in the middle of gunfire proved she has the heart of a lion.  The Vince Foster suicide proved...um, I’m not sure what that proved.

In line with feminist orthodoxy, Clinton campaign posters should read:

H. RODHAM CLINTON FOR PRESIDENT

As to the “first woman president” business, Hillary Clinton should claim, rather, that “it’s time this country elected the first XX-chromosomed Homo sapiens president.”

One can’t be too careful about the gender thang, you know.