Hillary screws the pooch with her assassination remark

SICK. Disgusting. And yet revealing. Hillary Clinton is staying in the race in the event some nut kills Barack Obama.

It could happen, but what definitely has happened is that Clinton has killed her own chances of being vice president. She doesn’t deserve to be elected dog catcher anywhere now.

Her shocking comment to a South Dakota newspaper might qualify as the dumbest thing ever said in American politics.

Hillary is becoming psycho stalker-ish

Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn, an Obama supporter, compared Clinton to the Glenn Close character in “Fatal Attraction” — a spurned woman turned stalker who was apparently drowned in a bathtub only to jump up one more time to be shot dead.

“Glenn Close should have stayed in that tub, and Sen. Clinton has had a remarkable career and needs to move to the next step, which is helping elect the Democratic nominee,” Cohen said during a local TV interview. He later apologized for his comments.

She Hasn’t Pumped Her Own Gas In Years

Barack Obama wouldn’t debate Hillary Clinton in a flat bed truck. But there she was today, sitting shotgun in one, driving home the argument that her rival doesn’t share her concern about the average Joe Six-pack when it comes to fuel prices.

When Clinton’s traveling press corps was told late last night that the candidate would be “commuting” to work with a “typical” Hoosier, the questions came rapid-fire. When was the last time Clinton pumped her own gas? When’s the last time she even drove? And, most to the point, what was a stunt like this going to prove?

Read the rest.

Another Clinton contributor accused of fraud

A Texas oilman who’s accused of defrauding the Nigerian government by illegally pumping and exporting 10 million barrels of oil is a major fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Kase Lawal of Houston is at least the fourth person accused or convicted of criminal wrongdoing to help finance Clinton’s political ambitions since 2000 and the second in her quest for the White House. The list also includes Chinese and Pakistani fugitives and a former Miami lawyer who was convicted of defrauding Cuba.

There’s no indication that Clinton’s campaign was aware of Lawal’s legal problems when it accepted his help in raising more than $100,000, but a McClatchy Newspapers investigation in the U.S. and Nigeria suggests that her campaign did little to scrutinize the background of one of its top fundraisers.

the Hillary Deathwatch at 9.7%

Hillary Clinton campaign stiffs her high school $3,161

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has been in the news several times this election season for being, shall we say, somewhat tardy in paying its bills. New York and Des Moines companies complained to the media. And when a New Hampshire landlord went public with his Clinton debt of $500, other companies cried out. (He eventually got paid his $500 and publicly donated it right away to Barack Obama’s campaign.)

Now, it looks from new Federal Election Commission filings that Clinton’s campaign had $8.7 million in outstanding debt at the end of last month. Ouch! And that included $3,361 owed to Maine South High School in Park Ridge, Ill., for renting the Watson Auditorium and for catering.

Hillary Rodham graduated from there in 1965.

On the eve of Super Tuesday on Feb. 5, Clinton staged a big town hall meeting from the Maine South High School auditorium that was broadcast nationally on the Hallmark Channel, allowing supporters across the country to ask questions live. Maybe you saw it. Millions did.

But campaigns move on. And her alma mater is still awaiting its money.

The FEC form lists only a “Dr. Rose” as the school contact. A switchboard operator at Maine South said no one was available to discuss the debt, and that the only Dr. Rose at the school was Dr. Rose Garlasco, who is assistant principal. Voice-mail messages for her and the Clinton campaign have gone unanswered.

Hillary’s reaction to WTC bombing… go to a photoshoot and attend a play

Hillary loves to talk about her ‘experience’ in the Oval Office. Well, here are a couple examples from some very noteworthy days during the Clinton administration.

When the World Trade Center was attacked in February 1993, President Bill Clinton flew to New York to be briefed on the attack and the response by city, state and federal authorities. According to newly released White House calendars of Hillary Clinton”s time as first lady, she remained in Washington to attend a photo shoot with Parade magazine and a performance of “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

Seven years later, in October 2000, the Clintons were enjoying a quiet weekend at their new home in Chappaqua, N.Y., when word came that the Cole, a U.S. destroyer, had been attacked in a Yemen port. Bill Clinton rushed back to the White House to deal with the crisis. Hillary Clinton returned to the campaign trail in her run for the Senate.

Top 10 Myths Keeping Hillary In The Race

Chip Collis gives an excellent analysis…

I have noted a number of myths amongst the comments here as to why Hillary should stay in the race. Here are ten enduring, kudzu-like myths, with the debunking they sorely need.

Myth: This race is tied.

No, actually, it’s not. Obama has the lead in number of states won, in pledged delegates and in overall delegates. Nothing will happen in the remaining primaries to substantially change that. As to the one thing Hillary does lead in, superdelegates, her quickly shrinking margin is among DNC personnel only. When you look at the elected superdelegates, Congressman, Senators and Governors (i.e. people who actually work with both Obama and Clinton) Obama leads there, too.

Myth: Okay, the popular vote is tied.

There are people who claim that because of the 3% separation, that Obama’s lead in the popular vote is a “statistical tie.” This is a myth because, when you can actually count things, there’s no need of statistics and no such thing as a margin of error. The popular vote is not an estimate based on a sampling, like a poll. Like the general election, there are winners and losers and, so far, Obama is the winner.

Myth: Fine, but what if we count electoral votes? NOW Hillary is ahead!

Not so much. The proportions of electoral votes to population versus delegates to population are pretty comparable. So if you allocated electors proportionally in the same manner that you allocate delegates, Obama is still ahead. If you allocate them on a winner-take-all basis, then that would be the same as allocating the delegates on a winner-take-all basis, so why bring electors into it?

Myth: But if we did do it like the Electoral College, that proves Hillary is more electable than Obama, because of states like California.

This is perhaps the saddest little myth of all. It’s ridiculous to suggest that Obama will lose New York and California to McCain because Clinton won them in the primaries. No, come November, those states will join with Obama’s Illinois to provide 40% of the electors necessary for him to win.

Myth: Very well, then, Mr. Smarty-Math. But if we counted Michigan and Florida, THEN Hillary would be winning!

Nooo, she wouldn’t. The margin would depend on how you allocate the delegates, but Obama would still be ahead. And he’d still be about 100,000 ahead in the popular vote, too, despite not even being on the ballot in Michigan. However, it would enhance Hillary’s chances of catching up in the remaining races.

Myth: Ah HA! So Dean is keeping them out just to help Obama! And Obama is keeping them out.

That’s two myths, but I’ll treat it like one. The only people who can come up with a solution to this problem are the states themselves, to be presented to the Rules and Regulations Committee of the DNC for ratification. It was Rules and Regs, not Howard Dean, who ruled that Florida and Michigan were breaking the rules when they presented their original primary plans. If the two states cannot come up with a plan to reselect delegates, they can try to seat whatever delegates were chosen in the discounted primaries by appealing to the Democratic Convention’s Credentialing Committee, which includes many members from Rules and Bylaws.

Myth: If they don’t get seated until the convention but a nominee is selected before these poor people get counted then these states are disenfranchised.

There are two ways to debunk this myth: semantically and practically. The first is based on the word “disenfranchised:” these people have not been deprived of their right to vote. Through the actions of their states, their votes don’t impact the outcome. Now, you may say that that is specious semantics (Myth: I do say that!) but practically speaking, this is the usual effect of the nominating process, anyway. All of the Republican primaries since McCain clinched the nomination have been meaningless, but those voters are not disenfranchised.

Florida and Michigan tried to become more relevant in the process by breaking the rules. They risked becoming irrelevant instead.

Myth: Well, I say they are disenfranchised, and Hillary Clinton is their champion.

Only when it suits her. Last fall, when the decision was first made to flush 100% of Michigan and Florida delegates, Clinton firmly ratified it. That was because the typical punishment of only 50% representation also kept the candidates from raising money in those states. Figuring that she would wrap up the nomination handily anyway, the clear front-runner agreed with all the other candidates – including Obama – to completely “disenfranchise” those two states.

Myth: Well, never mind 2007. She’s doing more now to bring them in.

Not really. Recent stories in the St. Petersburg Times political blog said that 1) the Obama camp has reached out to the Florida Democratic party about a compromise and that 2) the Clinton camp will discuss nothing else but re-votes, which are legally, practically and politically dead.

Myth: Whatever! Hillary can still win! I know she can! She and her 37% positive rating will sweep through the remaining primaries and Michigan and Florida, winning 70% of everything and superdelegates will flock to her banner and Barack Obama will personally nominate her at the Convention and John McCain will give up and George Bush will even quit early so she can take over and… and… and… can I have a glass of water?

Yes, and you should lie down, too.

Clinton Pushes Housing Market Fixes As Campaign Manager Sits on Board of Bankrupt Lender

Hillary Clinton spends considerable time on the campaign trail bemoaning unscrupulous lenders who have left millions of Americans scrambling to keep their homes but all the while her campaign manager, Margaret “Maggie” Williams, has sat on the board of one of the nation’s once-largest and now-bankrupt sub-prime mortgage lenders.

Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson told FOXNews.com late Sunday that Williams, a longtime Clinton ally, didn’t join Clinton’s Democratic presidential campaign as a volunteer until after Delta Financial Corporation — for which Williams is a director — went bankrupt in December 2007.

That’s more than seven years after Williams joined New York-based Delta Financial in 2000. She became a director one month after a federal settlement was reached with the lender over discriminatory lending practices. More recently, Delta has been accused by consumer advocates of pursuing predatory practices throughout the housing boom and bust.

As of September 2007, Williams owned 12,500 shares of Delta’s common stock, and by 2007 had earned at least $175,000 for her board obligations, according to company filings available in the Securities & Exchange Commission online database.

…
Intently focused on the nation’s housing crisis in recent appearances, Clinton has been clear that sub-prime mortgage lenders, particularly in poor, working class urban neighborhoods shoulder much of the blame for the credit crunch.

…

But as it turns out, Clinton’s top aide is on the board of what had been — until its bankruptcy — the ninth-leading sub-prime lender in the nation, handling almost $800 million worth of sub-prime lending in the third quarter of 2007 alone, according to National Mortgage News.

Hillary the next governor of New York?

Terrified that their bloody primary campaign will doom them in the November presidential elections in the US, some Democrats are floating a consolation prize for Hillary Clinton – Governor of New York State, according to a media report.

The travails of New York Governor David Paterson have opened up a new potential career path for Clinton, ‘Newsweek’ says quoting unidentified well-informed Democratic Party insiders.

They want Clinton, a New York Senator, to consider the option if she concludes after the April 22 Pennsylvania primary that she cannot overtake Barack Obama for the party’s presidential nomination.

Hillary Clinton, while fully committed to continuing her presidential campaign, was said to be open to discussing the idea, while her husband and former president Bill Clinton rejected it out of hand, the magazine says in its upcoming issue.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to see Hillary in a role where she is actually accountable for her decisions? The fact that Bill automatically opposed the idea is very telling.

Hillary stiffs the working people

There is something seriously ironic about a woman that will tell a bunch of rich people at a 2004 San Francisco fundraiser that she is going to “take things away from you on behalf of the common good”, referring to taking from the rich to give to the working class, and then proceed to stiff that same working class when she owes them monies for services rendered.

The Hillary Clinton campaign has avoided paying hundreds of bills and vendors and service providers are warning people to get paid up front before rendering any services to the Clinton campaign or they may not get paid at all.

Hillary campaign leaves trail of unpaid bills behind her

Hillary Clinton’s determination to remain in the presidential race may spell bad news for small businesses in the states that have yet to vote.

Staff have left a trail of unpaid bills and trashed offices across America in the past three months, raising fresh doubts about the viability of her run for the Democratic nomination. A property manager who let rooms to the campaign last summer in Clinton, Iowa, said that he found rubbish, rotting food, holes drilled in the walls and permanent stains on the carpet. He did not receive unpaid rent until last month — but kept the $500 deposit to cover clean-up expenses.

In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, landlord Terry Bennett went to the media to complain about late payment from Clinton campaign tenants who, he said, “left enough trash for a small army” — but no rent. When he eventually got his cheque, he donated it to Barack Obama.

Ohio event management companies owed money by Mrs Clinton were quoted yesterday warning others to ask for money up front. Jim Phillips, the owner of Show Tyme Exhibits, said that he needed a $607 invoice settled. “I’m a small guy,” he said. “I could use that.”

The delayed payments may reflect her straitened circumstances after the most expensive battle for the Democratic nomination in history, in which she has recently been heavily outspent on advertising by Mr Obama.

Bill Clinton, in a weekend e-mail to supporters, underlined the urgent need for money before the end of March. “Our opponents and the media will scrutinise our fundraising reports and look for any sign of weakness,” he said.

Although February was her best month yet in fundraising, documents filed last week with the Federal Elections Commission show that at the end of that month Mrs Clinton’s total of $38 million in the bank was mostly money that can be spent only if she wins the nomination.

The Politico.com website reported that if she had paid off the $8.7 million in unpaid bills and not loaned her campaign $5 million, she would have had less than $2 million available for this month. Mr Obama would still have had $31 million cash-in-hand even if he had paid off the $625,000 owed to creditors.

Mrs Clinton’s biggest debts are to her pollsters, strategists and advertising consultants. She also has hundreds of outstanding bills for catering, security, printing and hiring venues. By the end of February, her campaign had not, for instance, reimbursed the Hy-Vee chain for making thousands of sandwiches on the night of the Iowa caucuses.

boys are bullies

Faced with a growing chorus to abandon the uphill battle against Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton is falling back on what she sees as her trump card – her gender.

At other perilous junctures like the eve of the New Hampshire primary and the eve of Super Tuesday, the former First Lady highlighted her femininity during televised tearful moments. Now she is portraying the calls for her to quit as male chauvinism.

In comments leaked to the New York Times, Mrs Clinton is said to have told aides that she would not be “bullied out” of the White House race and in a conversation with two allies compared her plight to “big boys” trying to bully a woman.

Of course, this in no way impunes Hillary’s ability to act as Commander in Chief. As long as any international leaders aren’t bullies, too!

Bill appears to praise McCain, actually lays groundwork for Hillary’s Second Chance

For the second time in a week, Bill Clinton offered high praise for Republican presidential nominee John McCain — the candidate who could end up squaring off against Clinton’s wife Hillary.

At a stop in rural Pennsylvania on Thursday, Bill told the gathering that McCain is a “moderate” who “has given all you can give for this country without dying for it.”

He said McCain is on the right side in opposing the torture of enemy combatants and on the global warming issue, which “just about crosses the bridge for [Republicans].”

Clinton also told the audience that the race should not about the past, but about who is going to do more for the country in the future, ABC News reported. That person, he said, is Hillary.

One week ago Clinton expressed similar sentiments at a gathering in North Carolina, calling McCain a war hero who had demonstrated his love for his country.

Clinton noted that McCain supported campaign finance reform and “he doesn’t think global warming is a myth … so it is not going to be all that easy to beat him.”

Bill is clearly setting up the stage for the inevitable democrat nominee to lose to John McCain. Bill knows that Hillary currently has a snowball’s chance in Hades, and Barack Obama will be McCain’s challenger. Bill also knows that if Obama manages to take the prize from McCain, Hillary will be shut out for 2012. BUT, if McCain wins in November, Hillary can take him on in four years, when he’ll be an even weaker opponent due to four years of media bashing by the democrat hand-holders (known as the MSM).

Ronald Reagan’s son claims more ‘presidential experience’ than Hillary

“I’m indebted to Hillary Clinton for the revelation that my global wanderings when my dad was president qualify me to run for the presidency myself.

Mrs. Clinton has been insisting that her global junkets as first lady, and her meetings with foreign leaders, qualify her to be president of these United States.

I never thought of it that way, but if she is correct then I am eminently qualified to follow my father’s footsteps and take up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., not merely as a member of the president’s family, but as president in my own right.

Hillary, who even the media now admit will say or do anything to win election, is using her past as first lady to attempt to sell the American people on her expertise in foreign policy, a claim largely based on her travels during her husband’s administration and the fact that she met with world leaders while junketing abroad.

Well I’ll match my global travels and meetings with world leaders against hers any time, and I’ll come out on top.

As a member of the president’s immediate family I traveled far and wide, accompanied by an entourage of Secret Service agents, as are all members of a president’s family. And because I was the son of a sitting president, my presence in their country — no matter what the reason for my visit — was treated by their leaders as an official visit and I was accorded the treatment given to such official guests.

Moreover, I was present during times of crisis when momentous decisions were made affecting foreign policy. For example, I was in a suite in the Century Plaza Hotel when my father gave Attorney General Ed Meese the authority to order our military to shoot down Moammar Gadhafi’s aircraft in the Gulf of Sidra.

Following Hillary’s reasoning, that experience qualifies me as an expert of military matters relating to foreign affairs capable of knowing what to do in a moment of crisis.

Hillary’s widely-touted experience is not at all unique. Any member of any presidential family has had similar experiences but not one of them ever even suggested that their travel and meetings with foreign leaders qualified them to be president of the United States.

Nancy Reagan, for example, had far more experience than Hillary, but she was content to be the loving wife of a president instead of crowing about the famous world leaders she met in her eight years as first lady and claiming it qualified her to be president. Unlike Hillary, Nancy tells the truth.

Hillary has connection to Obama’s passport breach

A State Department official in charge of the department during two of the three breaches into the passport files of Sen. Barack Obama has a direct tie to Bill and Hillary Clinton and department officials are investigating whether she furnished information to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Maura Harty was in charge of the Bureau Of Consular Affairs during the first two breaches of Obama’s passport. Former President Bill Clinton appointed her to an ambassadorship during his Presidency.

Harty retired last month from the State Department. She joined the State Department in 2002 after serving as ambassador to Paraguay for two years of Bill Clinton’s Presidential term. Sources within the State Department told Capitol Hill Blue this morning that revelations of the first two passport breaches surfaced only after Harty left her State Department job.

The reports of Hillary’s campaign death are no longer greatly exaggerated

Kimberley A. Strassel, at the Wall Street Journal, has an excellent summary of why Hillary’s campaign is over.

Hillary Clinton’s been all the news this week, after she “misspoke” about Whitewater, Travelgate, missing files, suspicious pardons, Johnny Chung and cattle futures. Oh wait, after she “misspoke” about Bosnia. Oh wait, same thing.

That’s one way to make sense of the unrelenting, unforgiving, 24/7 news coverage of Mrs. Clinton’s fictional telling of Bosnian sniper fire and the subsequent debunking of her every word. In a nasty primary battle that has already featured racial slurs and Chicago slum lords, missing tax documents, and a “monster,” you might expect this slip-up to have been yet another blip in the media cycle.
[Hillary Clinton]

But that would have been to deny the press, the pundits, Democrats, and even Barack Obama, the catharsis of finally — finally! — getting a chance to confront the Clintons’ questionable mores. Hillary’s and Bill’s scandals have been the elephant in the primary room ever since she first signaled a run. Yet up to now everyone has been too scared, or too loyal, or too weary to touch the ugly past. Her Bosnia misspeak is now serving as proxy for all the truths about the Clintons’ non-truths, allowing even liberals to break free from their Clinton dependence.

And how liberating it is! The video of Mrs. Clinton’s speech about Bosnian sniper fire, twinned with real footage of calmly strolling down the Tuzla tarmac, has been running on one continuous TV loop. Reporters have dug up every last person who accompanied her on the sedate trip to pour a little more salt in the wound. “The Audacity of Hoax,” yelled a blog posting in the liberal Nation magazine, which innocently asked: “What else is she fibbing about?” Bill Burton, Barack Obama’s spokesman, gleefully noted that Mrs. Clinton’s recent attacks on his candidate were designed to deflect attention away from her “made up” Bosnia story. Heavy emphasis on the “made up” part. No need to mention Vince Foster, Red Bone, Marc Rich or Webster Hubbell. All this will do.

Read the rest here.

Hillary’s Experience: Helping Iraqi Spies

A Michigan man facing federal criminal charges of illegally working for Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi Intelligence Service says he met with Hillary Clinton at the White House in May 1996.

In a 1997 interview with this reporter, Muthanna Hanooti said that at the meeting, Mrs. Clinton was “very receptive” to his request for an easing of the American sanctions on Iraq that were in place at the time. He said Mrs. Clinton “passed a message to the State Department” about the need to implement the oil-for-food deal, which was intended to allow Saddam to sell billions of dollars’ worth of oil to pay for food for Iraqi citizens.

Hillary, why doth thy media foresaketh thee?

Hillary is being “swiftboated”!

She claimed that she came under sniper fire when she visited in Bosnia in 1996, but was contradicted by videotape showing her sauntering off the plane and stopping on the tarmac to listen to a little girl read her a poem.

Similarly, John Kerry’s claim to heroism in Vietnam was contradicted by 264 Swift Boat Veterans who served with him. His claim to having been on a secret mission to Cambodia for President Nixon on Christmas 1968 was contradicted not only by all of his commanders — who said he would have been court-martialed if he had gone anywhere near Cambodia — but also the simple fact that Nixon wasn’t president on Christmas 1968.

In Hillary’s defense, she probably deserves a Purple Heart about as much as Kerry did for his service in Vietnam.

Also, unlike Kerry, Hillary acknowledged her error, telling the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: “I was sleep-deprived, and I misspoke.” (What if she’s sleep-deprived when she gets that call on the red phone at 3 a.m., imagines a Russian nuclear attack and responds with mutual assured destruction? Oops. “It proves I’m human.”)

The reason no one claims Hillary is being “swiftboated” is that the definition of “swiftboating” is: “producing irrefutable evidence that a Democrat is lying.” And for purposes of her race against matinee idol B. Hussein Obama, Hillary has become the media’s honorary Republican.

In liberal-speak, only a Democrat can be swiftboated. Democrats are “swiftboated”; Republicans are “guilty.” So as an honorary Republican, Hillary isn’t being swiftboated; she’s just lying.

Indeed, instead of attacking the people who produced a video of Hillary’s uneventful landing in Bosnia, the mainstream media are the people who discovered that video.

I’ve always wondered how a Democrat would fare being treated like a Republican by the media. Now we know.

Hillary hits a new low.. in her approval rating

Hillary Clinton is sporting the lowest personal ratings of the campaign. Moreover, her 37 percent positive rating is the lowest the NBC/WSJ poll has recorded since March 2001, two months after she was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York.

For Hillary, lying ain’t no big deal

Hillary Clinton got caught in a lie recently, a whopper about being under fire in a so-called combat zone, a well-rehearsed lie she has been telling on the campaign trail for months.

When the truth came out, as it so often does in the microscopic world of politics, she shrugged her shoulders and dismissed it by saying:

I made a mistake. That happens. It proves I’m human, which you know, for some people, is a revelation.

Calling her tall tales of running and ducking for a cover a “mistake” is massive understatement. Her claim about being human leaves an opening that’s ripe for comment but we won’t go there.

Clinton’s campaign for President is built on a mountain of lies. She says she brokered peace in Northern Island. The man who did broker the peace — and who won a Nobel Prize for his honest efforts — says her claims are a crock.

Ron Fournier of The Associated Press writes an excellent analysis of Clinton’s vague association with the truth:

During a speech last week on Iraq, Clinton stretched the truth to the breaking point. “I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia and … there was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn’t go, so send the first lady. That’s where we went. I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

Hogwash. The truth is:

— There was no sniper fire.

— Nobody ducked for cover.

— Bad weather, not security concerns, kept her husband from making the same trip a few months earlier.

Clinton and her aides stood behind the story — which she has told more than once — until video surfaced showing the former first lady, her daughter, Chelsea, and their entourage strolling off the plane and walking calmly across the tarmac.

What makes Clinton’s situation unique — and the Bosnia embellishments so damaging — is the fact that the New York senator has built her candidacy on the illusion of experience. Any attack on her credentials is a potential Achilles heel.

As first lady, she did not attend National Security Council meetings, did not receive the presidential daily briefing on terrorism and other threats and did not have a top level security clearance. Her foreign trips were glorified goodwill tours, a collection of photo opportunities and sightseeing trips.

Yet her lies about being under fire, used as a questionable way to justify her claim of being qualified “from day one” to be commander-in-chief are an insult to every man and woman who served their nation and actually came under fire. Anyone who has been under fire in a combat situation will tell you that it’s not something you forget and it’s certainly not something that you simply “misspeak” about.

To accept Clinton’s ludicrous claims that she “misspoke” means accepting the fact that she misspoke at least three times during the campaign. Each time, she added more embellishment to the story. When challenged with the facts, her first claim was that she was “sleep deprived” and because of lack of sleep she wasn’t in full control of her memory or faculties.

This from the woman who wants us to believe that she will be the best person to answer that ringing phone at 3 in the morning.

the math doesn’t add up for Hillary

A funny thing is happening. While Hillary and Bill Clinton appeal to superdelegates to override the will of the voters and back Hillary, the superdelegates are doing just the opposite.

The latest delegate count posted on realclearpolitics.com shows that Hillary’s lead among superdelegates, once a comfortable 60 votes, has now been cut almost in half, to 36 delegates. The latest tally has Hillary leading among superdelegates by 247 to 211. So, with 57 percent of the superdelegates decided, Hillary’s lead is shrinking.

In fact, Barack Obama’s total delegate lead has swelled to 163 votes among elected delegates and 127 among all delegates. With 1,614 votes, he isn’t far from the 2,025 he would need, without Florida or Michigan, to win the nomination.

Of the remaining 566 delegates to be selected, Hillary should enjoy a slight edge. She’ll probably win Pennsylvania (158 delegates), Indiana (72), Kentucky (51), West Virginia (28), and Puerto Rico (55). Obama will likely win North Carolina (115), Oregon (52), Montana (16), South Dakota (15) and Guam (4). If this turns out to be so, Hillary would lead in states with 364 delegates, while Obama would prevail in states with 202. But even if we assume 10-point wins for each candidate in each state (and the margin will likely be much tighter), all Hillary would get from her states is 36 more delegates while Obama would get 20 from his — still leaving Obama with a lead of 147 in elected delegates.

At that point, Obama would have about 1,900 votes, within spitting distance of the 2,025 he’d need to win. Hillary would have to win the remaining superdelegates by a top-heavy margin of 2:1 in order to win (steal) the nomination from Obama, who will have won the most elected delegates.

Even if we factor in possible do-over primaries in Florida and Michigan, the nature of the proportional representation process is not likely to change this outcome significantly. Hillary might get an extra 20 delegates if she wins both states, but she’s not likely to get more.

Can Hillary carry the remaining super delegates by 2:1 when she is carrying the ones who have committed by only 247 to 211? Not very likely. The pressure on these delegates to vote as their states voted will be very intense and few are likely to stand up to it.

Remember that these superdelegates are either elected officials in their own right, which means that they need to get re-elected, or party officials in the various states whose ears are very close to the ground. Particularly in caucus states that Obama carried heavily, they are not about to antagonize the party activists who backed Obama by undercutting their will and switching to Hillary.

In fact, the track record of the super delegates so far indicates that they are abandoning Hillary and signing up with Obama as his delegate lead mounts.

So even if the Clintons try as hard as they can (and they will) to steal his election, their chances of doing so are getting increasingly remote.

Newsflash: Hillary is now from Pennsylvania

Remember when Hillary Clinton moved to New York and adopted it as her home by idiotically putting on a Yankees hat? And remember how Hillary Clinton tried to head into Illinois and claim that no, no, she’s from there too? And then remember how she implied that her Wellsley and Yale roots meant she was from Massachusetts and Connecticut in the lead up to those states’ primaries? And then remember during the Texas primary she claimed she also had deep roots in south Texas?

Well, now she’s claiming she’s actually from Pennsylvania – a convenient announcement just a few weeks ahead of Pennsylvania’s primary.

* davidsirota’s diary *

I just got this from her campaign in my email box:

Dear David,

Hillary has always had deep family roots in Pennsylvania and lifelong memories of her time spent there as a child. Her grandparents came to Pennsylvania over a century ago, and her father, Hugh Rodham, was born and raised in Scranton — and then went on to play football for the Penn State Nittany Lions. Hillary has always been connected to Pennsylvania and that’s why she has always carried with her the images and voices of the people she came to know. Coming back to Pennsylvania this week has been more like a homecoming…

Yes, she cares so much about Scranton that she spent the last decade championing the same NAFTA that has destroyed that part of Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Why do the Clintons always treat the public like we are just drop-dead stupid?

Hillary’s Commander-In-Chief Test

Monday Howard Wolfson, the supreme spokesman for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, issued a pronouncement by telephone conference call: “We do not believe,” he said, “that Sen. Obama has passed that key commander in chief test.”

This point was apparently made to disqualify Barack Obama from the No. 2 vice president job that he says he would never want and Hillary Clinton herself brought up last week and has talked about several times along with her husband but now they’ve decided the Illinois senator hasn’t passed the commander in chief test that he’s never taken and no one knows what it is anyway.

Which got us to thinking. What do you suppose a commander in chief test looks like? What do you have to know how to do to become commander in chief? And how, by the way, do we know whether Sen. Clinton has passed or even taken the commander in chief test?

Her campaign has not released Clinton’s commander in chief test, which….

fits because she hasn’t released her recent years’ income taxes either or the vast volume of documents from her first lady days that she says constitute so many of those 35 years of valuable experience that qualify her to be commander in chief.

So the entire world is left to guess what exactly is on Hillary Clinton’s commander in chief test. Which may be what her campaign wants. Because, in point of fact, if you think about it, Obama and John McCain are actually a tad bit closer to being the commander in chief since Obama leads in popular votes, states and Democratic delegates and McCain has already locked up the Republican nomination, unless Ron Paul really turns it on here in the next few weeks.

Hillary: Billary has sunk you

Diary entry by Richard Volaar

I was listening to Randi Rhodes during the commute this afternoon and she mentioned an intriguing possibility.

Bill doesn’t want Hillary to win. Sure, he’ll look like he’s giving it his best, but the facts on the ground tell a different tale. A tale of an unhappy husband and a frustrated former President.

For example, these verbal gaffes he engages in from time to time while stumping for his wife — do they sound like a caring husband who really wants his wife’s dream to come true, or do they sound more like an unhappy husband doing his umpteenth penance for finding some pathetic solace outside his barren, purely convenient, marriage?

I really do not believe Bill Clinton wants Hillary to be President of the United States. I could say that this is because he is a selfish cad who wants to be the only Commander and Chief of his broken little family. But I think — no, I feel — that Bill knows the stresses of the job and at some point during this campaign it has occurred even to him that his wife is completely incapable of being the Commander in Chief of a dying superpower. He found himself out of his element on more than one occasion — one being painstakingly documented by the lurid and sadistic Kenneth Starr — and those times, while not the best in world history, certainly were not as far gone as they are now. The US Treasury has been bankrupted, the real estate market is tanking, the stock market is beginning its death rattle and every punk on every street corner throughout the world is going to introduce themselves to a beaten and abused military machine. Bill knows what he had to go through to get Reagan’s largesse under control. I think Bill clearly sees, as anyone with a head for numbers sees, that there is no way out of this mess we are in. The Bush Crime Family has all of us in a box canyon at high noon.

Bill knows, deep down, that Hillary and her temperment are not a good mix for a job that has quickly become a trip into the hottest, darkest most sulfur-smoldering parts of hell on Earth. No one in their right mind would want to become a person whose very nervous system would become the private property of the Federal Reserve system and, as such, would be tossed onto the ashheap of history when all was said and done.

And how do we know that Hillary is cratering under the pressure of this campaign and the disintegration of her marriage? I think former Senator Gary Hart captured it best in his most recent entry over at Huffington Post when he said, “She has essentially said that the Democratic party deserves to lose unless it nominates her.” And in so doing Hillary Clinton has broken the “final rule” of politics. I couldn’t agree more.

Ladies and gentlemen, Hillary Clinton is a monster and she hasn’t even darkened the door of the Oval Office. The stimulation is too great even for a woman of Hillary’s former caliber. Like all addicts who must “shoot the Moon” every so often to capture that ultimate experience that seems to have eluded them years ago, Hillary is now spiking herself like a scorpion running out of a bonfire. She is stinging herself repeatedly to kill the pain of the burn because the numbing effect of the toxin feels better than the sting and ache of burning flesh. One sting too many, one last hit from the crack pipe, and life as it was known before is no more. Self destruction feels better than facing the reality of the facts as put before you.

Sinbad: Less scared than Hillary

In her efforts to establish tough foreign policy cred, Sen. Clinton has cited a harrowing flight into Bosnia during fighting there, with the “threat of sniper fire” forcing a “corkscrew” landing. “If the place was too small, too dangerous or too poor, send Hillary,” she said while describing the trip in Iowa.

The effectiveness of the Bosnia credential has been undercut a bit by disclosure that she was accompanied on her harrowing flight by Chelsea, Sheryl Crow and the entertainer Sinbad. Now, Sinbad has spoken out, and scoffed at Hillary’s claims, describing it as nothing more than a standard USO trip to entertain troops:

“What kind of president would say, ‘Hey, man, I can’t go ’cause I might get shot so I’m going to send my wife…oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.'”

He apparently didn’t find it as harrowing as Hillary: “I think the only ‘red-phone’ moment was: ‘Do we eat here or at the next place.'”

And he never heard anything about sniper fire: “I never felt that I was in a dangerous position. I never felt being in a sense of peril, or ‘Oh, God, I hope I’m going to be OK when I get out of this helicopter or when I get out of his tank.'”

Aussie feminist Greer brands Hillary ‘cold, bossy’

Outspoken feminist Germaine Greer has rounded on US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, branding her as “cold,” “bossy” and “manipulative” while questioning her credentials for the top job.

Australian-born Greer, here to promote her new book, launched into the candidate, saying she was unappealing to feminists as her political reputation was largely due to her marriage to former US president Bill Clinton.

“I don’t like Hillary because she’s so bossy and cold and manipulative and stuff, and I don’t think having her in power is going to make any difference, basically, because she will have the same set of advisers,” Greer said.

“I can’t see that Hillary would appeal to feminists because, why is she there? She is there because she is Bill’s wife, and it’s a bit useless to pretend, ‘Oh, it’s because of her wonderful job as a senator,'” she told Australia’s Nine Network late Monday.

“I just don’t think it’s true. When she had a big job in government, she blew it,” said the British-based Greer, referring to Hillary Clinton’s work on health issues during her husband’s administration.

Greer, who has made headlines with provocative attacks on the likes of Diana, Princess of Wales and the late Australian “crocodile hunter” Steve Irwin, said she knew the Clintons personally.

She attacked the former first couple’s marital style, saying the pair enjoyed a “confederacy” or business partnership, rather than an emotional relationship.

“They give me the creeps, from that point of view,” Greer said.

Hillary Clinton Is No Victim And Barack Obama Is No Ken Starr

“Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign compared rival Sen. Barack Obama on Thursday to independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr, the Clintons’ chief nemesis of the 1990s.

Clinton herself declined to comment on the comparison, made by her chief spokesman in a conference call with reporters and also in a memo distributed by the campaign.

Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said Obama’s statement that he plans to be more critical of Clinton’s record is reminiscent of the attacks the Clintons endured during the investigations in the 1990s.”

The worst insult that a Democrat can lob against a fellow Democrat is to compare him to Ken Starr, the independent counsel who was obsessed with uncovering Bill Clinton’s sex life.

Obama has waged a tenacious but circumspect campaign that is beyond reproach. Hillary has more scandals than a dog has fleas, but Obama has refrained from using any of them against her. If Obama was a sex-obsessed misfit like Starr, he would have questioned Hillary’s sexual orientation. But Obama is a gentlemen, who would never play the gay card against his opponent.

Barack is not mining the mud that the Clinton’s wallow in, he is simply asking Hillary to release her tax records.

You would think that Hillary was a paragon of virtue, but she is the opposite: A politician who will do anything to gain power. In the last few weeks she has thrown everything, including the kitchen sink, at Barack Obama.

By comparing Obama to Starr Hillary is attempting to portray herself as a victim. A bully always paints himself as a victim: Everyone hates me, that’s why I took that kid’s lunch money.

Hillary is not a victim and Obama is not Ken Starr. Hillary’s machinations are so transparent; I hope voters are not deceived. A Hillary administration will plunge this country into scandals and malaise.

Shamelessly Hillary

She will stop at nothing to win the nomination.

Back on public display are Hillary’s marvelous shape-shifting abilities. Since the beginning of the campaign, we have seen shifts from the Commander-in-Chief Hillary to the teary Victim Hillary. But in just the last ten days, we’ve watched:

Hillary gracious: “I am so honored to be sitting on this stage with Barack Obama.”

Hillary resigned: “And you know, whatever happens, we’ll be fine.”

Hillary school-marmish: “Shame on you, Barack Obama!”

Hillary feisty: “I am in the solution business, my opponent is in the promises business.”

And Hillary exultant: “We’re going on, we’re going strong, and we’re going all the way.”

So in just a couple of weeks she’s traversed, far and wide, the emotional and behavioral map — even flirting with the notion of a highly unlikely Clinton-Obama ticket. In her Mississippi speeches, even her accent seemed to change, as she morphed from the blue-collar Ohio worker to the wife of the kind of guy who can host a fish-fry in Tupelo. (Wonder if Big Bill did his Elvis imitation for the hometown folks.)

Obama mocks Hillary

Barack Obama headed into Tuesday’s primary in Mississippi, a state he is tipped to win, mocking talk of a “dream ticket” headed by his rival Hillary Clinton.

Obama, who leads by about 100 delegates after 45 Democratic contests, ridiculed the Hillary camp for arguing that he is not ready to be commander-in-chief, but could be her number two. “If I’m not ready, how is it that you think I should be such a great vice president?” he said, drawing laughter from supporters at a rally on Monday in Columbus, Mississippi.

Obama said Hillary’s team was “trying to hoodwink you.” “With all due respect, I’ve won twice as many states as Hillary. I’ve won more of the popular vote than senator Clinton. I have more delegates than senator Clinton,” he said. “So I don’t know how somebody who is in second place is offering the vice presidency to the person who’s in first place.”

another loss for Hillary

Barack Obama won overwhelming support from black voters today to crush Hillary Clinton in Mississippi’s Democratic presidential primary, the last time the two rivals will compete for six weeks.

another Clinton ally caught with his pants down

US Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton sidestepped questions on Monday about the sex scandal engulfing Eliot Spitzer, her home state governor and political ally.

“I don’t have any comment on that. Obviously I am sending my best wishes and thoughts to the governor and to his family,” Clinton said, opening her first campaign swing through Pennsylvania, which holds its presidential primary on April 22.

Spitzer apologized on Monday after he was accused of paying for sex with a call girl. Authorities say he was caught on a federal wiretap arranging a tryst with the woman at a Washington hotel room.

It was a blow to Clinton, who recently intensified her criticism of rival Barack Obama’s relationship with Antoin Rezko, a political patron on trial in federal court in Obama’s hometown of Chicago for alleged fraud and corruption.

While not personally close, Clinton and Spitzer have been friendly colleagues ever since the former first lady first ran for a US Senate in New York in 2000.

Her aides said Clinton deeply respected Spitzer’s work during his two terms as state attorney general, during which he became a national crusader against corporate corruption and Wall Street investment excesses.

Spitzer faced pressure to resign yesterday as well as questions about whether he would be prosecuted.

A New York Times report said he hired a US$1,000-an-hour prostitute and was caught on a wiretap at least six times on Feb. 12 and Feb. 13 arranging to meet her.

Spitzer, a married 48-year-old who investigated prostitution as attorney general, apologized for what he described as a “private matter,” but said nothing about resigning.

Hmm… a high ranking politician caught having sex with another woman. Now what other politician was impeached because of the same thing? Maybe Hillary could answer that.

The Clintons, a horror film that never ends

The Clintons have always had a touch of the zombies about them: unkillable, they move relentlessly forward, propelled by a bloodlust for Republicans or uppity Democrats who dare to question their supremacy. You can’t escape; you can’t hide; and you can’t win. And these days, in the kinetic pace of the YouTube campaign, they are like the new 28 Days Later zombies. They come at you really quickly, like bats out of hell. Or Ohio, anyway.

When you look at the electoral map if the Clintons run again, you also see a reversion to the old patterns of the 1990s – the patterns that cynical political strategists such as Karl Rove and Dick Morris have been exploiting for two decades. The country – scrambled by the post-baby-boomer pragmatism of Obama – snaps back into classic red-blue mode, with the blue areas denoting Democratic-leaning states around the edge and true red Republican states in the heartlands.

The Clintons are comfortable with this polarisation. They need it. Even when running against a fellow Democrat, they instinctively reach for it. Last week, in response to the Obama camp’s request that they release their tax returns, Clinton’s spokesman called Obama a new Ken Starr. For the Clintons, all Democrats who oppose them are . . . Republicans. And all Republicans are evil.

And evil means that anything the Clintons do in self-defence is excusable – even playing the race card, and the Muslim card, and the gender card, and every sleazy gambit that the politics of fear can come up with. This is how they have arrested the Obama juggernaut. It’s the only game they know how to play.

Hillary Clinton Is No Victim And Barack Obama Is No Ken Starr

“Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign compared rival Sen. Barack Obama on Thursday to independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr, the Clintons’ chief nemesis of the 1990s.

Clinton herself declined to comment on the comparison, made by her chief spokesman in a conference call with reporters and also in a memo distributed by the campaign.

Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said Obama’s statement that he plans to be more critical of Clinton’s record is reminiscent of the attacks the Clintons endured during the investigations in the 1990s.”

The worst insult that a Democrat can lob against a fellow Democrat is to compare him to Ken Starr, the independent counsel who was obsessed with uncovering Bill Clinton’s sex life.

Obama has waged a tenacious but circumspect campaign that is beyond reproach. Hillary has more scandals than a dog has fleas, but Obama has refrained from using any of them against her. If Obama was a sex-obsessed misfit like Starr, he would have questioned Hillary’s sexual orientation. But Obama is a gentlemen, who would never play the gay card against his opponent.

Barack is not mining the mud that the Clinton’s wallow in, he is simply asking Hillary to release her tax records.

You would think that Hillary was a paragon of virtue, but she is the opposite: A politician who will do anything to gain power. In the last few weeks she has thrown everything, including the kitchen sink, at Barack Obama.

By comparing Obama to Starr Hillary is attempting to portray herself as a victim. A bully always paints himself as a victim: Everyone hates me, that’s why I took that kid’s lunch money.

Hillary is not a victim and Obama is not Ken Starr. Hillary’s machinations are so transparent; I hope voters are not deceived. A Hillary administration will plunge this country into scandals and malaise.

Obama tells Hillary ‘you can’t afford me’

“You won’t see me as a vice presidential candidate — you know, I’m running for president,” the Illinois Senator said in an interview with CBS. “We have won twice as many states as Senator Clinton, and have a higher popular vote, and I think we can maintain our delegate count.”

Former President Bill Clinton echoed his wife on Saturday in a campaign rally in Mississippi whose primary is set on Tuesday, saying a joint ticket pairing the two would be “almost unstoppable.”

“I know that she has always been open to it, because she believes that if you can unite the energy and the new people that he’s brought in and the people in these vast swaths of small town and rural America that she’s carried overwhelmingly, if had those two things together she thinks it’d be hard to beat,” he said.

So far, Obama has won 28 Democratic primaries and caucuses while Clinton won 17, including Florida and Michigan primaries that have been stripped all delegates who would vote at the nomination convention for violating the party’s rule.

Fortunately for the American people, Obama is smart enough to know that he can do much better for himself and our country than to drape around his neck the corrupt political machine of Hillary Clinton that is about to become a massive boat anchor.

Hillary busy rewriting history again

Democratic presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to backpedal Friday from comments she made in October suggesting Mississippi was a backward place for women’s progress.

Speaking to radio station WJZD-FM in Gulfport, Miss., the former first lady said the comments she made about the state in the run up to the Iowa caucuses “were not exactly what I said,” even though they came directly from an interview she gave to the Des Moines Register in October.

Obama supporter in Hillary tv ad

The political ad that sparked nationwide controversy turns out to have a surprising local connection.

One of the actors in the Hillary Clinton ad was shocked to see herself, especially because she's a fierce supporter of Barack Obama.

The so-called "red-phone ad" played a big role in Clinton's win in Texas, suggesting Barack Obama is too inexperienced to handle a national crisis.

But the young girl starring in the ad will actually be voting age next month and says she's no fan of Hillary Clinton.

more obfuscation by the “most ethical administration in history”

Federal archivists at the Clinton Presidential Library are blocking the release of hundreds of pages of White House papers on pardons that the former president approved, including clemency for fugitive commodities trader Marc Rich.

The archivists’ decision, based on guidance provided by Bill Clinton that restricts the disclosure of advice he received from aides, prevents public scrutiny of documents that would shed light on how he decided which pardons to approve from among hundreds of requests.

Clinton’s legal agent declined the option of reviewing and releasing the documents that were withheld, said the archivists, who work for the federal government, not the Clintons.

The decision to withhold the records could provide fodder for critics who say that the former president and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, now seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, have been unwilling to fully release documents to public scrutiny.

Officials with the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., criticized Hillary Clinton this week for not doing more to see that records from her husband’s administration are made public. “She’s been reluctant to disclose information,” Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, told reporters in a conference call in which he specifically cited the slow release records from the Clinton library. “If she’s not willing to be open with (voters) on these issues now, why would she be open as president?”

Hillary’s disrespect of Mississippi might bite her

In an interview with the Des Moines Register’s David Yepsen, she said she was surprised that Iowa, like Mississippi, had never elected a woman governor, senator or member of Congress.

“I was shocked when I learned Iowa and Mississippi have never elected a woman governor, senator or member of Congress. There has got to be something at work here,” she said.

“How can Iowa be ranked with Mississippi?” she asked, suggesting that Iowa is too good for that. “That’s not the quality. That’s not the communitarianism, that’s not the openness I see in Iowa.”

How do the politicos in Mississippi feel about what she had to say?

“Our official comment is, we decline to comment,’’ said Terry Cassreino, spokesman for the Mississippi Democratic Party.

The state Republican chairman, however, was not nearly as reticent.

“I think that her statements about Mississippi are probably an acknowledgement that she has no chance of carrying this state in a general election,’’ said Jim Herring, the Republican chairman.

Herring was echoing a common refrain from the John Edwards’ campaign – that Clinton would not do well in the South in November of 2008. Of course, few Democratic candidates for president have performed well in Mississippi in recent history. In 2004, President Bush beat Sen. John Kerry by 20 percentage points.

And Herring pointed out that Mississippi currently employs a woman lieutenant governor, Amy Tuck. Tuck, who is the second woman to serve as Mississippi’s lieutenant governor, has held that office since she was first elected as a Democrat in 1999 before changing parties.

“I don’t know if she doesn’t think that’s not a high-ranking office, but it’s the second highest-ranking office in Mississippi,’’ he said.

Mississippi will be holding their primary vote on Tuesday, March 11th.

Hillary, ‘Most Secretive Politician in America’?

The Obama campaign is stepping up the rhetoric. Campaign Manager David Plouffe went so far as to call Hillary Clinton the “most secretive politician in America today.”

The tough talk underscored not only the negative shift in tone of the Obama campaign in the past 24 hours, but just how contentious this fight for the nomination is becoming.

Part of what the Obama campaign would like the focus to be on is ethics — something adviser David Axelrod said they would be glad to have a debate over. But the Obama campaign may be a victim of time, since an argument on ethics could be tough to steer with the ongoing Rezko trial.

“I think that you know Sen. Clinton has talked a lot about disclosure in the last few days,” Plouffe told reporters. “Sen. Clinton is the most secretive politician in America today. This has been a pattern throughout her career of the lack of disclosure.”

Echoing Axelrod, Plouffe said the campaign would be more than willing to tangle with the Clintons, appearing to suggest that if needed they would raise issues like Whitewater that plagued the Clintons in the 90s.

“As it relates to ethics and transparency,” Plouffe said, “we’re surprised that they would want to have an extended conversation about contributors and land deals and ethics issues. I don’t think that’s a lengthy conversation that’s probably going to work out very well for them.

“So we are obviously not going to allow these attacks to go unanswered, and we think things like who has the strongest ethics, who has the chance to really bring about reform, who’s going to be the most open with the American people that that’s a real distinction,” he said.

He added that because the Clinton campaign couldn’t win on pledged delegates, it would try to devise “alternative nomination strategies.” He added that the Obama campaign would fight back and “raise questions on things like disclosure, like ethics, like foreign policy.”

He added that Clinton “exaggerated her experience and can’t name anything she’s done.”

“The only thing she talks about, by the way, is a speech she gave in China,” Plouffe said. “She criticizes us for giving a speech. There’s an exaggeration there. Her experience, they believe, is just conferred on her; we have to prove ours somehow. She is not a candidate with deep experience on these matters.”

Hillary: Stand by some other man

Ann Coulter is trying to do what Hillary Clinton can’t… help her win the nomination.

The mainstream media said she was finished, but our brave Hillary soldiered on to wallop B. Hussein Obama in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island Tuesday night. I don’t know what the MSM is so upset about– we let them pick the Republican nominee. Did they want to pick the Democratic nominee, too?

Not only that, but after some toothsome appearances on various madcap comedy shows this past week — “Saturday Night Live,” “Late Night With David Letterman,” “Hardball With Chris Matthews” — Hillary’s “likability” quotient is soaring! According to the latest CNN/CBS News poll, she’s just been upgraded from “Utterly Loathsome” to “Execrable.”

The percentage of registered voters who would rather disembowel themselves with a wooden spoon than vote for Hillary has just slipped below the magical 50 percent mark. We’re surging, Hillary! If you want to be even more likable, you should go on “The View.” Next to those four harpies, you seem almost agreeable.

big friend of big business

Hillary Rodham Clinton likes to portray herself as a friend of the middle class and working people, but Business Week says “she’s hardly an enemy of American business interests.”

The magazine says Clinton is being backed some some major Wall Street names, such as Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack and Steve Rattner, managing principal of the Quadrangle Group. She also:

Has more maxed-out, executive-level donors than any other candidate.

Has received $3.9 million infrom donors associated with the health-care industry, the most of any candidate.

Has attracted large support from donors affiliated with Goldman Sachs, and they are her top contributors.

catfight!

Two columnists at the Boston Globe seem to have very different opinions about what is fair media coverage of a woman running for President.

Caryl Rivers explains how any uncomplimentary media coverage is inherently sexist.

The media coverage of the Clinton campaign will be, for years to come, a textbook case of how the coverage of female candidates differs from that of males. Women have to walk a very thin line when they run for high office. On the one hand, they have to appear tough, nothing at all like a sniveling female, and when they do talk tough, they are called “shrill.”

The media loved Hillary when she put her hand on Obama’s and said it was a privilege to be on the same podium; they hated her when she slammed him for giving out what she called misleading information on her healthcare plan. (After googling “shrill” and “Hillary” after that encounter, I stopped at 20 pages.)

At the same time, the news media have gone into a deep swoon over Barack. Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz said, “Look, I haven’t seen a politician get this kind of walk-on-water coverage since Colin Powell a dozen years ago flirted with making a run for the White House. I mean, it is amazing.”

I guess the moral there is that the media can’t give Obama any sort of preference.. after all, he’s a man! (Notice how Caryl dodges the race issue, tho.. after all, he’s black!)

Then there is the Elinor Lipman, also at the Boston Globe. She seems to think that Hillary might not be the perfect candidate.. even though she’s a woman.. but because her personality throws up huge red flags.

Questioning a woman’s tone and delivery evokes charges of sexism, of biased preoccupations with niceness – as if no one ever complained about the Bob Dole snarl or the Dick Cheney sneer. How many times do we have to hear that when women get forceful, they are called shrill and angry, while bellicose males are lauded as strong and presidential? We get it. No one has questioned Senator Clinton’s toughness, or her readiness to be commander in chief. I hope “hectoring” isn’t a word that is more feminine than masculine, because I would like to employ it now.

My e-mailing friends took great and irretrievable offense when Senator Clinton rapped on our candidate’s knuckles with “So shame on you, Barack Obama!” for campaign mailers criticizing her healthcare plan. Paired up with her Providence soliloquy (“The sky will open. The light will come down. Celestial choirs will be singing. Then everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect!”), she crossed some line in our maternal hearts. “Hillary off the deep end?” two friends wrote in near-simultaneous e-mails. “Off her meds?” wrote another. I wondered if these double rhetorical whammies might be a paler version of Howard Dean’s unintentional valedictory in Iowa in 2004.

Hillary’s crisis management experience

It was, in this reporter's opinion, the most interesting moment in today's Clinton campaign phoner with reporters. Responding to the release of HRC's new TX TV ad, which asserts in no subtle terms that only she has the experience to deal with a major world crisis, and, relatedly, to keep your children safe, Slate's John Dickerson asked the obvious question:

"What foreign policy moment would you point to in Hillary's career where she's been tested by crisis?" he said.

Silence on the call. You could've knit a sweater in the time it took the usually verbose team of Mark Penn, Howard Wolfson and Lee Feinstein, Clinton's national security director, to find a cogent answer. And what they came up with was weak -- that she's been endorsed by many high ranking members of the uniformed military.

Take a listen ...

Newsweek calls for Hillary to drop out

If Hillary Clinton wanted a graceful exit, she’d drop out now — before the March 4 Texas and Ohio primaries—and endorse Barack Obama. This would be terrible for people like me who have been dreaming of a brokered convention for decades. For selfish reasons, I want the story to stay compelling for as long as possible, which means I’m hoping for a battle into June for every last delegate and a bloody floor fight in late August in Denver. But to withdraw this week would be the best thing imaginable for Hillary’s political career. She won’t, of course, and for reasons that help explain why she’s in so much trouble in the first place.

Withdrawing would be stupid if Hillary had a reasonable chance to win the nomination, but she doesn’t. To win, she would have to do more than reverse the tide in Texas and Ohio, where polls show Obama already even or closing fast. She would have to hold off his surge, then establish her own powerful momentum within three or four days. Without a victory of 20 points or more in both states, the delegate math is forbidding. In Pennsylvania, which votes on April 22, the Clinton campaign did not even file full delegate slates. That’s how sure they were of putting Obama away on Super Tuesday.

The much-ballyhooed race for superdelegates is now nearly irrelevant. Some will be needed in Denver to put Obama over the top, just as Walter Mondale had to round up a couple dozen in 1984. But these party leaders won’t determine the result. At the Austin, Texas, debate last week, Hillary agreed that the process would “sort itself out” so that the will of the people would not be reversed by superdelegates. Even if you include Michigan (where Obama’s name wasn’t on the ballot) and Florida, Obama has a lead of 925,000 in the popular vote. Closing that gap would require Hillary to win all the remaining contests by crushing margins. Any takers on her chances of doing so in, say, Mississippi and North Carolina, where African-Americans play a big role?

If Obama Went 0-for-10 . . .

Sigh. To this day, I’m not sure the Clinton campaign understands that no focus-group-tested slogan is going to have the elemental resonance of “Yes, we can” (Obama’s homage to César Chávez) or “Change the world.” Hasn’t anybody on the Clinton team ever read Joseph Campbell on the power of mythic narrative? And while we’re on the subject of message, what genius decided it was a great idea to demonize hope?

But it’s stunning that the battle-tested Clinton machine allowed itself to be outsmarted and outhustled at the arcane science of winning delegates in caucuses. And it’s even more surprising that the campaign has been so careless with its money that it now is resigned to being outspent anywhere and everywhere.

Most striking of all, to me, is that the campaign still can’t settle on what kind of candidate Hillary Clinton should be. Does she now have to go negative, or should she try to hitchhike on the hope express? Does she project steely resolve or reveal human vulnerability? The campaign wants to convince voters that they don’t know who Obama really is — yet also insists on fitting Clinton with a new persona every week.

Where Did All the Money Go?

Did this campaign have a budget? If not, why not? If it did, was it poorly constructed? Or did people running the campaign simply overspend? Anyway you slice it, the money mess throws into serious question her ready-on-day-one executive ability.

Clinton fired her campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, who was reportedly afraid to tell her boss the bad news about the squandered money. Lesson one for organizational disaster: A boss whose subordinates are scared to give her bad news. See Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam for what can happen.

Why was Doyle campaign manager in the first place? She had been a scheduleer and had never run a major political campaign. The gossip is that Doyle was the nominal campaign manager, not the real boss. Then why fire her?

Doyle has been replaced by Maggie Williams, a long time politico with a background in public relations and Hillary’s major domo during the Clintons’ White House years. Hers is a good resumé, but it does not include running a political campaign. But she is said to be a Hillary loyalist. In Hillaryland, loyalty and secrecy are prized over competence.

and video killed the radio star

According to Rasmussen, Hillary’s popularity in Texas was declining, then peaked the day of the Wisconsin primary. With 8 straight losses going into that primary, it was well known that Hillary needed that win to restore her mortally wounded campaign. Instead of a revival, her campaign now more closely resembles a wake.

It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see that Wisconsin could very well have been the final nail in the Hillary For President campaign coffin.

Bill puts his ‘campaign skills’ to use

hillary needs a shot…in the head

After 10 straight losses, many pundits are speculating about what Hillary needs to get her campaign back on track. Some say she needs to be more aggressive. Some say she needs to tone down her rhetoric. I say all she needs is a shot in the head.

Now don’t call the Secret Service to report a potential assassination attempt. I’m merely alluding to the plot of “Regarding Henry”, a 1991 movie starring Harrison Ford.

Ford plays Henry Turner, a despicable and ruthless trial lawyer whose life is turned upside down when he is shot in the head during a robbery. He survives the injury with significant brain damage and must re-learn how to speak, walk, and function normally. More importantly, he has also lost most of the memory of his personal life, and must adjust to life with the family that he does not remember. To the surprise of his wife and daughter, Henry becomes a loving and affectionate man.

Short of undergoing intense psychotherapy, a well-placed shot to the head could be the proverbial shot in the arm for Hillary’s campaign.

I’m just sayin’.

after losing Wisconsin, Hillary thanks… the marching band

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has gotten good over the last few weeks at fleeing a primary state she has just lost and trying to turn the page.

This time around, she did not even wait for the results to come in.

Instead, on Tuesday night, Clinton announced that she would give a “major address” in Manhattan on Wednesday morning and delivered what aides described as a “preview” here. It seemed clearly designed to be a pre-emptive strike against the news that Clinton had lost yet another primary race.

“Tonight I want to talk to you about the choice you have in this election and why that choice matters. It is about picking a president who relies not just on words but on work, on hard work, to get America back to work,” Clinton said. “The best words in the world aren’t enough unless you match them with action.”

Clinton, who has lost more than a half-dozen primaries since Feb. 5, once again did not congratulate her rival as his victory in Wisconsin became official. She did not even acknowledge that voting had taken place that day, instead thanking the high school marching band.

obama is a crackhead

A top adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign said Wednesday that Democrats should give more thought to Sen. Barack Obama’s admissions of illegal drug use before they pick a presidential candidate.

Bill Shaheen, a national co-chairman of Clinton’s front-runner campaign, raised the issue during an interview with The Washington Post, posted on washingtonpost.com.

Shaheen, an attorney and veteran organizer, said much of Obama’s background is unknown and could be a problem in November 2008 if he is the Democratic nominee. He said the Republicans would work hard to discover new aspects of Obama’s admittedly spotty youth.

Now let’s compare this to the earlier years in the Clinton household where Bill was (and most likely still is) a known cokehead.

According to biographer Roger Morris, a personal acquaintance of the Clintons, “The Clintons were close socially to Lasater and his wife and flew often on Lasater’s private Lear jet. They went to the Kentucky Derby. And these are flights that we later had testimony from state troopers and others that cocaine was available in ashtrays and literally at every seat on the private jet – as well as in the box at Churchill Downs.”

in private

Actual quotes of the “smartest woman in the world” as witnessed by her staff and the Secret Service agents assigned to protect her life.

“What the f*ck are you doing up there? You get back here right away.”

“Come back here, you *sshole! Where the f*ck do you think you’re going?”

“You stupid motherf*cker!”

“You fucking *sshole!”

“You g*ddamn stupid f*cking fool.”

“Motherf*cker”

“C*cksucker”

“For God’s sake Bill, don’t be an *sshole. If you want to lose this election because you’re too chickensh*t, then go ahead!”

“I’ve got to be there just to make sure they don’t f*ck it up.”

“Get f*cked! Get the f*ck out of my way! Get out of my face!”

“Stay the f*ck back, stay the f*ck away from me! Don’t come within ten yards of me, or else! Just f*cking do as I say, okay?”
A warning to her assigned Secret Service detail assigned to protect her life.

“If you want to remain on this detail, get your f*cking ass over here and grab those bags.”

“Personal, trained pigs.”

“F*ck off! It’s enough that I have to see you sh*t-kickers every day. I’m not going to talk to you, too. Just do your g*ddamn job and keep your mouth shut.”