Watch your back, Barack; Hillary’s closing in on you, and she may have a crowbar.

You don’t have to be a figure skating aficionado to remember Tonya Harding and the notorious incident in which one of her henchmen took a crowbar and kneecapped her rival Nancy Kerrigan to try to put her out of the competition for the in 1994 Olympics in Norway. January 6 was a day that will live in infamy in the annals of Olympic sports competition. Only two months later, on March 16, Harding pleaded guilty to hindering the investigation of the Jan. 6 attack on in a plea bargain to avoid prison time, and on June 30 of that year, Harding was stripped of her 1994 national championship and banned from the U.S. Figure Skating Association (USFSA) for life. The attack and the subsequent legal drama made national news and made Harding possibly the most hated sports figure of the decade.

Harding’s ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, also pleaded guilty, implicating her only after discovering that she had tried to blame the attack on him. On March 17 of that year, Washington Post reporter Johnette Howard wrote, “The intervening three months have been an almost unrelenting soap opera, with Kerrigan being portrayed as America’s sweetheart, Harding a ruthless competitor who just might be capable of anything, and hit men Shawn Eckardt, Derrick Smith and Shane Stant revealed as bumbling goofs.”

America’s sweetheart? Ruthless competitor? Bumbling goofs? Sound familiar…?

“Her securing the nomination is certainly possible - but it will require exercising the ‘Tonya Harding option,’” a Democratic Party official said of Hillary Clinton. Speaking to Jake Tapper (ABC News senior national correspondent) on condition of anonymity, the official asked, “Is that really what we Democrats want?”

“The Tonya Harding Option — the first time I’ve heard it put that way,” writes Tapper on his ‘Political Punch’ blog on the ABC News website. “It implies that Clinton is so set on ensuring that Obama doesn’t get the nomination, not only is she willing to take extra-ruthless steps, but in the end neither she nor Obama win the gold,” Tapper continues. “In this metaphor, presumably, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., would be Oksana Baiul,” he adds. “Does that make former President Bill Clinton Jeff Gillooly?”

Dubbed ‘America’s sweetheart,’ Nancy Kerrigan was the natural champion. It was not simply the figure skater’s beauty, but the natural magnetism and charisma that she radiated. So if we take up the metaphor being proffered by this anonymous Democratic official, then for Nancy Kerrigan, read ‘Barack Obama.’

Ruthless competitor? Speaking of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party official said, “She will have to ‘break his back.” In order to take the nomination from Obama, the official tells Jay Tapper, “She will have to destroy Obama, make Obama completely unacceptable.”

Bumbling goofs? “Smith allegedly hired Stant, at Eckardt’s direction, to hit Kerrigan in the knee with a collapsible metal baton after a practice session Jan. 6,” the Washington Post reported on January 15 of that year.

For Shawn Eckardt, Derrick Smith and Shane Stant, read Mark Penn, Harold Ickes and James Carville. Hillary’s hit men are just as willing to wield the crowbar, and while no one would call Ickes — much less Carville — a ‘bumbling goof,’ the appellation does seem to fit the hapless Penn, who crafted the “Hillary’s nomination is inevitable” strategy that has served her so badly. Penn also appears to be the genius behind the “only big states count” strategy that now has Hillary behind Obama in the pledged delegate count by around 150 (depending on who’s counting) and apparently unable to close the gap, even with a big win in Pennsylvania on April 22.

In the end, of course, Harding was able to deprive Kerrigan of the gold, even if Harding herself only placed a distant eighth at Hamar.

“Fifty days after being clubbed on the knee, Kerrigan gave the most scintillating performance of her career in the women’s figure skating competition at the Olympic Amphitheatre, but missed the gold medal by the closest margin possible: .10 of a point in a 5-4 decision by the judges,” Christine Brennan reported from the 1994 Olympics in Norway for the Post on February 26.

Harding’s conduct “intentionally undermines the concept of sportsmanship and fair play embodied in the USFSA bylaws and rules and amateur sportsmanship in general,” the five-member USFSA panel declared in banning her for life. “Ms. Harding’s actions as they related to the assault on Nancy Kerrigan evidence a clear disregard for fairness, good sportsmanship and ethical behavior,” the panel added.

Kerrigan won the silver medal, as well as the hearts of everyone in Hamar, but thanks to the handiwork of Harding and her henchmen, it was Oksana Baiul, as everyone knows, who won the gold.