Black Box Report

The mayor may be asking why, he may be saying it's unacceptable, but the sad fact is construction mishaps have become so common in New York, nobody should be surprised. Things have gotten so bad congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, whose district has seen two fatal crane collapses, said she's appalled and is calling on OSHA in Washington to come in and do a complete inspection of safety conditions at construction sites. Make no mistake, that’s a clear smack to the mayor, who she and a growing chorus believe isn't getting the job done.

Coming from a fan of the mayor, the outrage is completely legitimate. We've had a City Inspector resign after being arrested for falsifying business records. The city's Building Commissioner was pushed out. But what's changed?

Today's collapse happened at a site that was shut down for a day because they were working without a permit and operating the crane unsafely.

Obviously, New York, we have a problem.

Earlier this week we learned 80% of building plans had violations and the city's self-certification system is part of the problem.

We didn't need a second deadly crane collapse to convince us we have a big problem. Enough talk, enough buck passing Mr. Mayor. Construction workers and the people down below shouldn't have to hold their breath every time a building goes up in the Big Apple.

A conscience is a horrible thing...but my book advance makes it a li'l better.

Scott McClellan was always my favorite White House Press Secretary.

Ari Fleischer and Tony Snow were always too comfortable in a job whose sole purpose is spin. They weren't just good at it, they enjoyed it. On the other end of the spectrum, poor Dana Perino has that ever-present look of someone who's vaguely aware that something is amiss, but as long as she does her job, everything will work out OK. And why not? Most of the things that account for her boss' rock-bottom approval ratings happened before her tenure.

But Scott McClellan, for all his blank stares and robotic repetitions of denial, had soul. You could see the effects of the spin he was in taking its toll on him. While Fleischer and Snow took evident delight in misleading the press, and Perino's denial is as deep-rooted as her loyalty to the administration, Scotty looked more and more physically uncomfortable the weaker his stories became. The cognitive dissonance on his face when he'd utter his catch phrase, "I cannot comment on an ongoing investigation," was writ as large as a Times Square billboard.

And yet - and this is what I loved about him - in the face of all of this, he did the job anyway. Fleischer and Snow, whether they believed what they were saying or not, never let it show, and Perino doesn't seem to know any better. But Scotty did, and he went ahead and lied his fool head off anyway.

Fleischer and Snow have been at the kool-aid trough long enough that they'd never regret a single thing. Perino will likely move on and try to forget this episode in her life ever happened. But I always wondered if, and when, Scotty would break.

And now we know:

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a surprisingly scathing memoir to be published next week that President Bush “veered terribly off course,” was not “open and forthright on Iraq,” and took a “permanent campaign approach” to governing at the expense of candor and competence.

Among the most explosive revelations in the 341-page book, titled “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception” (Public Affairs, $27.95):

• McClellan charges that Bush relied on “propaganda” to sell the war.

• He says the White House press corps was too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war.

• He admits that some of his own assertions from the briefing room podium turned out to be “badly misguided.”

• The longtime Bush loyalist also suggests that two top aides held a secret West Wing meeting to get their story straight about the CIA leak case at a time when federal prosecutors were after them — and McClellan was continuing to defend them despite mounting evidence they had not given him all the facts.

• McClellan asserts that the aides — Karl Rove, the president’s senior adviser, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff — “had at best misled” him about their role in the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.

So, Scotty...tell us something we didn't know.

Of course, the White House is "puzzled" and thinks "it is sad" that the Scotty they knew and loved is now "disgruntled" (i.e. like a postal worker! crazy!). Former colleagues are shocked that he never expressed these reservations while serving.

Maybe because he valued his job?

The pushback is inevitable. Already Rove has likened him to a "leftwing blogger." Book sales will be touted as his sole reason for turning against his former master (although Scotty has two other very good reasons named "Rove" and "Libby"). This despite the inherent acknowledgement that Bush is extremely unpopular and Bush-bashing sells (ask Ari Fleischer how his rose-coclored memoir Taking Heat did).)

In the end, McClellan's book serves to underscore two things that come as no surprise to anyone outside of Bush's 28% dead-enders:

Between 2001 and the present, the American press failed miserably:

Just consider how remarkable that is. George Bush's own Press Secretary criticizes the American media for being "too deferential" to the Government. He lays the blame for Bush's ability to propagandize the nation on the media's uncritical dissemination of the Republican administration's falsehoods.

And...ummmm....we told you so:

Scott McClellan tells us Dirty Effing Hippies we were right about most everything. Of course, being right about everything we already knew that.

President Bush has no shortage of critics these days, and tonight he can add another to the list. Scott McClellan used to occupy an office just steps away from the Oval Office just down the hall, but now he's written a book that's rocked the White House and set the political talk show circuit on fire.

This morning the White House issued a terse statement saying McClellan is disgruntled about his experiences as Press Secretary. The statement went on to say, "This is not the Scott we knew."
The White House's reaction aside, what's really sad is how McClellan's claims barely raise an eyebrow anymore.

In fact, things have gotten so bad these past eight years that an inner circle confidant of the president claiming the war to be a "grave unnecessary mistake," saying he was lied to about the Plame affair, saying his White House was in "denial" as people died during Katrina...Somehow this doesn't surprise, but merely confirms what we've sadly come to accept under our fearless leader.

I've always been dumbfounded how anyone, even the most diehard Republican, could give this president and his administration a positive approval rating. Sure he's got the lowest numbers in history, but have we really sunk so low that this abomination of an 8 year chapter could be considered as anything but a nightmare?

Forget critics; consider what former employees have said. His Treasury Secretary described him as a "blind man in a room full of deaf people." And appointees from his former Secretary of State to the Director of Faith-Based Initiatives, they all said Cheney pulled the strings in a White House that always put politics above principle.

Maybe the only surprise in McClellan's tell-all is the tough truth from a former Press Secretary to many of my friends in the media: You have served as enablers to a president who needed a watchdog not a cheering section. Shame on all of us, Scott McClellan included.
And there are more books to come.

More of the president's former confidents will attempt to shock us with stories of the hypocrisy and hubris that are already such a large part of this White House legacy. The only surprise is that, no matter what is written, for many of us it will come as no surprise at all.

Clearly, the strain is getting to her.

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know I just, I don't understand it," Clinton told the paper.

Neither do I. And I'm not alone.

Now, do I think Hillary was suggesting, hoping, or preparing for the possibility of an Obama assassination? While the Clintons are rather big on message discipline (and despite the inaccuracy of her comparison to her husband's situation), even I don't think that was the intention here.

But.

There is no good way to bring up Bobby Kennedy in June of 1968. You just don't do it. And to do it in the midst of argiung why you're still lurking around the campaign trail is, intentionally or not, ghoulish. And you certainly don't then blame the guy who is actually getting assassination threats for blowing this out of proportion.

That said, Hillary's comment was light years more acceptable than what followed:

Wow.

I mean....wow. Wow wow wow whu-wa-wa-WOW.

I don't have a lot of (or even any) high expectations for the journalistic standards of FOX News, but...damn.

Apparently, "accidentally" saying Osama when you really mean Obama is, like, so 5 minutes ago. If you're gonna be on FOX News, you have to push the envelope, and Liz Trotta delivered:

Sure, she's not the first to call Obama "Osama" but I'm guessing she's the first on a national cable news network to openly state that it'd be great if both Osama and Obama could both be killed. And she found it hysterical. Unbelievable.

Actually, it's not so unbelievable. As the Ladner Report points out, the precedent had already been set:

Several incidents come to mind.

The first was back in March when Bill O'Reilly, Fox News Pundit said to a caller that he hoped he wouldn't have to organize a lynching party for Michelle Obama.

A week ago Mike Huckabee joked to the veterans he was addressing that the thump he heard was probably Barack Obama being hit.
......
When these so-called respectable people feel free to voice what we think are attitudes held only by backwater racists, our nation is in very, very serious trouble!

I think the president isn't the only one living inside a bubble. Given the cackle that accompanied Trotta's comment, I have to think that an insular bubble of stupid has engulfed the whole of Roger Ailes operation.

You simply do not joke about the assassination of a United States Senator and probable Democratic presidential nominee. You also do not deliberately identify him with a terrorist who killed thousands of innocent Americans. Liz Trotta must be fired immediately and held accountable for her despicable remarks.

Further proving a disconnect from reality, Trotta tried to brush this off as a joke gone wrong:

This morning, Trotta appeared on Fox News with Bill Hemmer and offered an apology, while also suggesting her remark was nothing particularly unusual this year.

She said, "Oh yes, I am so sorry about what happened yesterday and the lame attempt at humor. I fell all over myself, making it appear that I wished Barack Obama harm or any other candidate, for that matter, and I sincerely regret it and apologize to anybody I have offended. It is a very colorful political season, and many of us are making mistakes and saying things we wish we had not said."

Wait...that almost sounded contrite. Let's go to the videotape.

Uh-huh. That's better. Try not to smirk the next time you have to apologize for saying how cool it would be for the Democrat to get "knocked off," Liz. And drawing out the "SO sorry" and "SINCERELY regret it"?

Really sincere.

But delivery aside...On what planet would that be considered funny? Under what set of circumstances would that NOT be copnsidered offensive? Trotta would be lucky if getting fired were the worst of it. Harmless, mentally ill people off the street get prosecuted and jailed for similar comments. And if the FCC cared about more than wardrobe malfunctions, political obscenity is actionable against a network like FOX. Not that any of that has the proverbial snowball's chance of happening:

Trotta has since sort of apologized...This said after ranting on and on about Hillary's dark soul and how you just don't talk about assassination. Considering her bizarre 'joke,' Trotta should look in a mirror. She's unfit to offer any serious analysis on politics. In a sane world, Fox would be reprimanded by the FCC and Trotta would be out of a job. Not that it will happen. It's okay if it's not about a Republican.

Expecting a conservative to be accountable for something that would've gotten a Democratic supporter fired before the end of the broadcast is silly, I know, but if anyone is so inclined, feel free to contact the good people at FNC:

Teri Everett, Senior Vice President
Corporate Affairs & Communications
Phone: 212-852-7070
E-Mail: teverett@newscorp.com

Or file an obscenity complaint here:

http://www.fcc.gov/eb/oip/Compl.html
Electronic Mail at fccinfo@fcc.gov
Toll Free: 1-888-CALL-FCC (1-888-225-5322); 1-888-TELL-FCC (1-888-835-5322) TTY
Fax: 1-866-418-0232

In the meantime, now that the genie is out of the bottle and sitting on the sofa with his feet up, we can look forward to more of this, and worse. FOX News jokes about assassinating the black candidate, and it's not even June?

Gonna be a long five months.

Everyday it seems every newspaper, radio and broadcast report mentions the ever climbing cost of food and gas. Add to mix the housing headaches and you have a trifecta that's both important but predictable.

I understand this because we do it too. The economy is the number one issue, and we all can relate to filling up the car, putting food on the table and paying for the roof over our head. But in giving the hard numbers on our daily realities, we're only telling half the story. Sure we've got catchphrases on the ready like "Pain at the Pump", "Mortgage Meltdown" and, of course, "Middle Class Squeeze," but we all know that the money worries facing America run a lot deeper than our cars, food and even our homes. Put simply, everything costs so damn much, and for many the money coming in can't keep pace with the bills coming due.

I've found myself doing double takes when the cashier tells me the total. Friends openly worry about the how they'll swing college tuition; others worrying about their own jobs and some are simply doing without. Then there are the stories that don't come up in conversation; families stretching the dollar until it screams, but keeping up appearances like nothing has changed; or others already deep in debt, borrowing even more just to stay afloat.

The price of gas is a huge storyline, just like the totals at the checkout line and the worsening housing market. We'll keep reporting it, but this recession runs a lot deeper and you know it. Is you're kid still going to rent a limo for his prom? Are you still planning the same vacation you would have a year ago? How about summer or sports camp for the kids? Are you still telling you're daughter to apply wherever she wants for school or even forking over 50 bucks an application as often as she wants?

In ways big and small, the reality of today and the fear of tomorrow’s unknown, I believe, is a lot tougher and more complicated than my friends in the media would lead you to believe. Just because you haven't lost your job or your home doesn't make you one of the lucky ones. If you're stressed, you're not alone.

Like many of you, I have not worn a uniform. But also like many of you, I have had family serve with distinction and pride in the armed forces. I was raised to respect the soldier even if you disagreed with the war and, unlike a generation ago, I’m proud that our nation has learned that painful lesson. But as we've learned these last few years, our soldiers need a lot more than respect and even acknowledgement when they come home. They need and deserve for the compact of nation and veteran to be honored when it comes to care and benefits. To this point, without scandal or shocking revelation, the right thing is too often the rare thing. Our vets have been shortchanged at every turn and that is a national shame.

To be fair, progress is being made. But for the authors of this elective war, I suggest the bureaucrats take a field trip to places I’ve been privileged to see, places that have forever changed me.

The powers that be should go to Normandy, France. If they can stand at that cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach and not be moved by the symmetrical rows of crosses and Stars of David, they are more hardened than me.

They then should go to the Pacific and Pearl Harbor and visit the U.S.S. Arizona. Stand on that haunting bridge and you will begin to appreciate the sudden sacrifice.

Closer to home, they should leave their offices in our nation's capitol and visit the World War II Memorial, Korean Monument and the Vietnam Memorial. If they aren't humbled by the etched names on that black wall, they need to find a new line of work.

While we all should take a moment and remember that today is about more than snarled traffic and overcooked barbecue, lets hope we do more than just honor our fallen. Lets demand that we do right by the living too. Our soldiers and our veterans sacrificed for us, the least we can do is repay the favor.

Ted Kennedy is far from a perfect man. His personal failings are well documented, and for some conservatives he became the perfect foil. But love him or hate him, there isn't a lawmaker who doesn't respect him. But more than mere respect, I admire the man. Unlike the legion of hypocrites in higher office who moralize to others while living badly, he lived his own life without judgment. Unless, of course, he believed you were shortchanging the poor. Kennedy embodied the belief of "comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable." But in a chamber known for a lot of talk and little action, he walked the walk. The Massachusetts senator got things done, working across the aisle if need be. I catch myself speaking in the past tense and I hope I'm mistaken. We need him more than ever, and if a family has had more than its fair share of heartache, it’s his. It has been a life full of privilege, but also of pain that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. And for an enduring icon who has put the people before his own privilege, he deserves the unqualified wishes from a country of friends.

Staten Island congressman Vito Fossella has decided to throw in the towel. In a press release, the embattled Republican acknowledged what the rest of us already knew; a drunk driving arrest, coupled with a whole second secret family, isn't exactly a great campaign platform for a "family values" lawmaker. The politics of this scandal will sort itself out this November, but I want to kick Fossella when he's down for a different reason: He's a moralizing hypocrite.

Just like Eliot Spitzer condemning the scourge of prostitution when he has a call girl on speed dial.

Just like Larry Craig proselytizing about the sin of homosexuality while playing footsie in an airport men's room.

Just like good ol' Newt Gingrich who led the impeachment fight against Clinton while he cheated on two different wives.

Fossella is the latest phony in a long list of those who’ve condemned others' sexuality and behavior, while he couldn't keep his pants on. This fraud voted to impeach Clinton for screwing around and supported a constitutional amendment to keep gays from destroying the sanctity of marriage. But there's more; he voted to ban gay adoptions, which makes perfect sense for a guy with a secret family on the side who treats Father's Day like an obstacle course.

Nobody's perfect, I'll be the first to admit, but if this past year should have taught us anything it's that the moralizers are the ones we should trust the least.

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
- Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride

Ouch. That's gonna leave a mark.

A little vino would be keen-o

Take pride, New Yorkers! If there's one thing our politicians know how to do better than just about anyone else, it's have splashy, jaw dropping sex scandals. This time it's Staten Island's own Rep. Vito Fossella, whose been having the kind of bad week normally reserved for guys named Spitzer.

It all started on May 1 when Fossella was picked up outside of DC on a DWI charge after running a red light. Having difficulty walking a straight line and reciting the alphabet can be the result, according to Fossella, of drinking "two or three glasses of wine." Which is true, if you're drinking it out of pint glasses. His blood alcohol level was .017 - twice the legal limit in Virginia - so it was off to the hoosegow for "Vino."

To his credit, Fossella said he was on his way to "see his sick kid" who lived nearby, coincidentally, at the same address as that of the woman who bailed him out (literally, not politically), Air Force Colonel Laura Fay.

Fossella's wife and three children all live on Staten Island. When asked how he could be seeing his "daughter" in Virginia, a rep for Fossella called it "a demeaning and highly inappropriate question."

In DC-speak, this means a reporter just hit paydirt:

Fossella was juggling at a level usually reserved for the plot lines of thoroughly incredible Hollywood movies.

Not only was Fossella keeping his wife and family in the dark about his girlfriend and child in Northern Virginia. He was also keeping his girlfriend and child in Northern Virginia in the dark that he was still married and had a family in New York.

And from there, all hell broke loose:

As if the whole "secret second family uncovered by a drunk-driving arrest" thing wasn't trouble enough. Here's what's new:

He took a shady trip to France that may have been a publicly financed love romp!
• Nobody will pay for him to run again!
• Neither of his families wanted him around for Mother's Day!
• He was never nice to his gay sister because of his "family values" stance!
• He could have maybe survived the second family thing (it's been done before), but not after the drunk-driving thing!
• And just about everyone is calling for him to resign. Today!

This would be for any elected official, but it didn't end there. The drunk driving thing would be bad enough - maybe even Patrick Kennedy-bad - for any pol to bounce back from, but when you're a Family Values Republican, the whole "secret seciond family" thing can be a bit sticky:

Perhaps now might be a good time to note that Fossella has an 81% rating from the Christian Coalition for his "pro-family" votes, and supported a constitutional amendment to prevent gays from destroying the sanctity of marriage. (Fossella also voted to impeach Bill Clinton over an extra-marital affair.)

But wait, that's not all!

He also voted to ban gay adoptions in DC. And that makes sense: the damage caused to a child by being adopted by two loving people of the same gender vastly exceeds the damage caused to a three year old by having a father who can only drop by now and again, when his real family isn't paying attention, or to his three other children by growing up in a home where there are secrets no one can talk about.

In a year when the GOP is losing safe seats in deep red districts and can't afford the cash to fund yet another close House race, this is a real opportunity for Dems, and another headache for the GOP:

NY-13 is a very purple and winnable seat...After all of this, Republicans probably have a better chance if Fossella resigns than if he stays in office.

Incredibly, Fossella is not only not resigning, but will run for re-election.

It's either that or he'll have to spend more time with his families.

Both of them.

Now that Democrats have all but officially chosen a nominee, people are turning more attention to what that John McCain fellow's been up to. This week the Maverick denied a Huffington Post report that in 2000, he told a Hollywood dinner party he did not vote for George W. Bush. McCain's campaign denied the report, but it has since been confirmed by several sources, including Candace Bergen and "West Wing" actors Bradley Whitford and Richard Schiff:

There are three witnesses now. Anybody honestly think all 3 are lying? Now, this may help McCain with moderates, who hate Bush, but it won't help him with conservative and other die-hard Republicans who have always suspected that Mr. McCain was more comfortable around Democrats (read: Joe Lieberman) than Republicans.

I would suggest that Republicans would be less upset that McCain, after a bruising primary fight with Dubya in the summer of 2000, didn't vote for Bush that year than they would be that John McCain was at a Hollywood dinner party with Republican-turned-liberal apostate Arianna Huffington, Murphy Brown and a couple of Holloywood actors.

Then the newspaper that knows John McCain the best, the Arizona Republic, took a look at McCain's other voting habits, and found he's not quite the Maverick he claims to be:

What this really reveals isn't so much McCain's principles, conservative or otherwise, as his lack of them. During the six years he wasn't running for president, McCain publicly and gaudily promoted his maverick credentials by voting against his party 18 times. But in the four years he was running for president, Mr. Straight Talk suddenly became Mr. Straight Ticket, voting against the GOP only once.

Conclusion: he'll do whatever it takes to get your vote. During off years he pimps for the independent vote and during election years he pimps for the conservative vote. Sure, it's craven, but it's a nice gig if you can get away with it.

And if you had any doubts McCain was a Republican's Republican, he's called Obama the Hamas candidate, going back on his pledge to take the high road and run an honorable campaign. Obama replied McCain had "lost his bearings," as both have identical policies on Hamas. McCain's campaign fired back, accusing Obama of...ageism?

"Losing his marbles"? Sure. "Losing control of his faculties"? No doubt. But "losing his bearings" has nothing to do with age - it refers to someone who has lost their way. They're off track. They're moving in the wrong direction. The McCain gang probably should have let this one go; it only serves to remind everyone that McCain would be the oldest president in American history, and that they'd prefer that this topic remain off limits.

For months, as Democrats reserved their ammo for each other, it seemed like John McCain himself was off-limits. All that's about to change.

And in the meantime, McCain had his BFF Joe Lieberman stick upo for him in what is, by far, the creepiest defense I've heard this year:

"I just want to report that this morning I personally checked John McCain’s bearings. He has not lost any of them. They are all in really great shape."

Ummmm...

Ew.

One week before the votes took place, Hillary Clinton predicted primaries in Indiana and North Carolina would be "game changers." And indeed they were. Not in the way she was hoping for, but in a "no more games" kind of way:

Are we done pretending this race is still going?

Not quite yet, but the writing is on the wall for anyone who cares to read it. Needing to keep it close in North Carolina and score an inspirational win in Indiana, Clinton did neither, and effectively saw her last arguments fade away:

She has nothing left to commend her to the superdelegates except an electabilty argument unsupported by a single key metric or even circumstantial evidence that Pastorgate has done Obama...damage at the polls. Are they going to take the nomination from the first serious black candidate for president without any compelling data to hang their decision on? Not a chance. It's over. Let's move on.

And as if to make it official, TV's talking heads have removed the scales from their eyes and finally discovered the delegate and popular vote math. Even Lord High Pundit Tim Russert declared "We now know who the Democratic nominee is going to be, and no one's going to dispute it." While there are no shortages of Clinton supporters who will indeed dispute that, this is not the message the Clinton campaign wants out there:

Russert is largely responsible for articulating the conventional wisdom, embraced by the DC establishment. And once the establishment decides that a candidate is finished, and starts treating (them) accordingly, it practically becomes self-fulfilling. In Clinton's case...it's critical that the broader campaign narrative suggest that she still has a shot at the nomination. And right now, on every channel, everyone is hearing the opposite.

Except, apparently, Clinton, who's forging ahead to West Virginia, even if most aren't sure why:

It's been pretty clear for over a month that Hillary's only chance to win was to hope that Obama got hit by a meteor or something. In the end...he got hit by several meteors and it still didn't knock him out. Short of Obama literally keeling over from a stroke, I'm not sure what Hillary has left to hope for.

Graceful exits are difficult to time. And as long as Hillary keeps winning contests - even if those wins do nothing for her overall chances for the nomination - it would be hard to convince her and her campaign to go out on (ostensibly) a win.

So, whither Hillary? Now that the math has spoken, does she grind it out, or does she get out? Or maybe something in between? Even supporters who concede the nomination is not likely are urging her to keep on keepin on:

She should run her campaign against John McCain. She will win West Virginia and Kentucky...(and) might even challenge in Oregon. What she should not do is run against Barack Obama. If there is a path to the nomination for her, and I doubt there is, it won't come from attacking Obama now.

"You can stay in the race, but only if you play nice." This is being called, in some circles, the "Huckabee option", and for Clinton, it may have some appeal. Especially if Clinton is angling for the VP slot on the ticket. Attacking McCain would not only improve her stature among Democrats who've turned against her "kitchen sink" campaign, and would go a long way towards some of that party healing we hear so much about as well.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like Hillary plans on playing nice:

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.

Yes. There certainly is.

Because...ummmm...y'know....people who aren't white don't work hard?

See, Obama's coalition is bigger. But Clinton's is broader, because it consists of more Real Americans and fewer [insert adjectives from RNC attack ad here] elitists and Shiftless Negroes.

Is Hillary a racist? No. But when even a staunch supporter as Charlie Rangel calls that a dumb thing to say, her tactics have some scared she's passed the point of no return:

That's what bothers the most about what she's doing now: the sense...(that) she knows how elections are won and you and I don't, she has an instinctive understanding of precisely what compromises and panders and nods and winks get you to 50.1% of the vote and you and I don't, and she's not going to stop doing this until the rest of us see reason and reject anyone who has a different game plan.

Like the Terminator in a lemon yellow pantsuit.

Feel the LOVE!

Let's talk about Great Expectations. No, not the Dickens novel, but this screaming headline from the Drudge Report today:

DANGER DAY: HILLARY FACES '15-POINT DEFEAT' IN NC; SEES INDIANA WIN

15 points? Really? I hadn't heard that. In fact, no one's heard that, not even Zogby. So keep in mind this is Drudge we're talking about, and that this is Team Clinton's way of inflating their opponent's expectations to make themselves look better when they inevitably lose NC:

Sources don't favor certain outlets because they think reporters have friendly faces...(but) because they feel they get good coverage, can influence other coverage, and can get the message they want out the way they want to get it out. If the Clinton folks say they're behind by 15 and Obama wins by 5 points the Clinton camp declares it a victory for them.

This is also known as the Clinton campaign's Standard Operating Procedure.

Boy, those Clinton staffers do love talking to Matt Drudge. And why not? To the rest of the media, he rules their world, and once you get him to set up your opponent's expectations, you can turn to other media to push the "perception" issue. Chuck Todd at MSNBC's First Read is, as ever, a willing accomplice:

Clinton seems to be on the upswing in North Carolina, and Obama seems on the upswing in Indiana. Yet both are likely to win on their "home" demographic courts. So what would the Vegas lines be today? Our guess: five points in each state, which should already be considered a perception victory for Clinton. But given the closet superdelegate support Obama seems to have, he's been given the benefit of the doubt with some if he simply wins North Carolina by, well, about five points. You'll know it will be a mediocre to bad night for Obama if his campaign has to talk about who won the most delegates tonight, rather than by how much they won each state.

...even though the candidate with the most delegates is the only metric that matters.

I understand the media loves a good fight and a horse race, and Hil and Barack have given them a doozy, but please, enough is enough. All good things must come to an end, and this thing stopped being good shortly after Super Tuesday. Slate's Tim Noah is getting dizzy watching the goalposts move, and says it's time to cut the suspense:

Here's a rule I would like every political reporter, campaign official, TV talking head, and politician in the United States to follow. Go ahead and say, if you like, that Hillary Clinton retains a serious chance of winning the Democratic nomination. If you say this, however, you must describe a set of circumstances whereby this could happen. Try not to make it sound like a fairy tale....

So, please, let's stop pretending there's much suspense about who the nominee will be. As an arithmecrat, I will not consider anyone the winner until a candidate achieves 2,025 delegates. But neither am I obliged to believe Hillary Clinton has a plausible shot. She doesn't.

No matter what the "perception" is.

More than 4,000 American soldiers have died in Iraq; a multiple of that injured and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent, and were still wondering when we will see the return on the most costly of investments.

We know we were lied to about the reasons for the war, the sacrifices to expect, and how long it would last. We were misled on how we would be greeted, when Iraqis would fight for themselves and how their oil would foot the bill. We were told of the "Coalition of the Willing," though we largely fight alone. We were promised a functioning Iraqi government; instead we got sectarian dysfunction. I could go on, but why bother? We all know the backstory. What happens next though? You tell me.

November will tell us a great deal. But beyond the next president, is a functioning democratic Iraq really a possibility? Can we leave too soon or are we delaying the inevitable? While we finally have some adults in Secretary Gates and General Petraeus running things, they cannot undo the failures of the fathers of this fiasco.

So again I come back to the question: Can we ever say "mission accomplished" in Iraq and mean it?

My heart hopes so but my head says that ship has sailed.