TWO MINUTE WARNING

I'm fond of football analogies, and here, courtesy of M.S. Bellows is a good one:

"I know that sports cliches get old, but Clinton has portrayed herself as Rocky, battered but unbowed. (She forgets that after Rocky and Apollo Creed batter themselves insensible, Rocky loses.) Bill Clinton has said that if Obama didn’t want to get hit, he shouldn’t have suited up. They're right that sports are a good analogy; they've just got the game's situation wrong:

It’s late in the fourth quarter; maybe a minute to go. Obama is up by three touchdowns. All he really needs to do is drop to a knee four times to run the clock out, and he wins. The police are restraining the fans from coming onto the field; the announcers are naming the production staff. But Clinton doesn’t believe it’s over. She believes she still can win – after all, it’s not mathematically impossible for her to score on a Hail Mary, kick the extra point, successfully recover an onside kick, then do it all twice more, all in one minute. It’s never been done, but it theoretically could be.

And then she does what all inferior quarterbacks do under pressure: she tries that Hail Mary pass – today’s letter, trying to salvage a lopsided delegate count from Michigan – but, under pressure, she isn’t paying attention to fundamentals any more. She isn’t watching for the secondary receiver; she isn’t using her peripheral vision; she isn’t making a firm plant before releasing the ball; she throws away Latino and Asian and black votes by repeatedly emphasizing the importance of "the white electorate"; she isn’t even running SpellCheck on important documents. There’s not enough time! There’s not enough time! The candidate herself repeats her staffers' racist blunders; the important "open letter" is issued to thousands of media outlets with two typographical errors. The ball leaves the quarterback’s hand with a slight wobble ... the defender wants to end the game, and his eyes and his reflexes are sharp ....

Or we can return to Clinton's Rocky analogy. There's a reason fights have referees, and fighters have trainers who are authorized to throw in the towel: the boxer who's high on adrenaline and dizzy from being pummeled doesn't always realize how badly she's being beaten or how much she stands to lose by continuing. In some fights, when the fighter won't quit but should, it's completely proper -- humane for the fighter, and healthy for the sport itself -- for someone to stop the fight. Not because they're afraid of the fight continuing, but because they see, even if the fighter doesn't, that it's actually already over."

Personally, I still think all the fuss about Hillary's current blusters is overblown. She does know it's over - but she's not going to come out and say so until she's had a chance to try to get out of the debt hole she's dug herself. She'll probably stay in until after West Virginia and Kentucky on May 20th which will allow her to walk away a "winner" and fundraise in the meantime, hoping to cancel some of the debt.

So far she hasn't said anything since Tuesday that hurts Obama -and she could if she wanted to. The Florida and Michigan stuff is just a position that she can't reverse now without looking completely stupid, and the "white voters" stuff while it is stupid works more for Obama the against (those who won't vote for Obama in the general won't vote for a Democrat anyway). The talk about WV and KY as the "next test" is boilerplate political rhetoric which again does no damage to the nominee.

All in all if you examine the comments of Hillary since Tuesday there's nothing that really is attacking Obama.

NOTES FROM THE SMACK DOWN

-WOW! Just wow. Last night was better than I'd imagined. I'd put Clinton winning Indiana at about 6 points any less than that and she would have lost any ability to keep making the argument that she's still viable. 2 points??? That's just unbelieveable. That's a statistical tie, particularly with Obama's comfortable double digits in North Carolina.

The speeches told the story too. His was definitely about moving to the next stage whereas hers had nary a mention of Obama and was more about thanking everyone who'd worked so hard on her campaign. On MSNBC wacko Pat Buchannan called it "valedictory". Watch:






Any time you see someone thanking their family, you know you're at the end. Even the Oscar(tm) winners save their families for last. Well, second to last -they always seem to have to address their final words to "all those hopefuls out there" or some such rot. In politics the last line of a speech is always about "American Ideals", or whatever.

In other news: you're finally starting to see the supers start to trickle (please let it be a flood soon) to Obama.

George McGovern switched from Hillary to Obama today, and (drumroll please) Wes Clark reportedly called Clinton last night to urge her to drop out.

I have to say that last comes as a HUGE relief. I was genuinely bummed when Clark got behind Clinton -though realistically it made sense: He was their big military brass and skippered the Kosovo campaign brilliantly. I had hoped he would run himself and was solidly in his camp at one time because I (mistakenly) thought that the only way you could beat the Repubs on National Security was to run a military man against them -not just a war hero, but a general who'd had something to say in shaping policy. Clark was not just a smart General, but a good manager -and anyone who can shepard a military conflict with no deaths is a leader to be reckoned with.

So anyway it reconfirms my faith in him that he sees the writing on the wall. Loyalty is a good thing but not at the price of ceding the nation to the GOP for another 4 years.

Optimistically I think she may drop out by weeks end, but realistically she'll probably stay in until May 20th because that'll give her easy wins in West Virginia and Kentucky (very few of those crackers would be caught dead voting for a black man -even the democrats) which will also allow her to fundraise a bit to offset the 11+ million of her own money she's dropped into her campaign.

Now don't be surprised if she (or her minions) talk tough until then, but I really don't think she's stupid -she sees the writing too. I'll wager that you see a marked softening in tone from her toward Obama. A sure sign that she recognizes he's the nominee.

UNBEF%^&INGLIEVEABLE!!!!!

The script for the Clinton camp has kicked into gear and continues to befuddle and mystify.

Right now Terry McCauliffe is daring to say that they were down 15 points in Indiana a few weeks ago. WTF?!?!?!

In Indiana?!?!

Here's the standard Clintonian script on election night:

1. Grossly deflate their past numbers in states she was favored to win. (15 points down my a$$! She's always been favored to win that state!!!)

2. Talk up how this set of races is a make or break situation for Obama (even though he's already made it and broken her)

3. When she wins states she was favored to win claim that it was an improbable come from behind victory. (even though she wins by less of a margin than was forcast)

4. Pretend that the margin which she loses in the states where she loses is better than expected because it wasn't a complete rout. (even though it's pretty close to what the pre-election polls predicted and gains her nothing)

5. Repeat the above ad-nauseum until the MSM starts citing it as CW.


AAAAARRRGGGGHHHH!!

I think I know why Elvis became such a big fan of shooting TVs.

IN, NC, LIVE COVERAGE

This is a great experiment. Here is the MSNBC live coverage of the Indiana and North Carolina primaries:

HILLPOCRISY?

Here's a thought for the day:

How many times will Hillary Clinton accuse Barack Obama of saying something she's already said?

So far we have:

1. NAFTA-gate
2. "Going negative"
3. The "associations" with the Weather Underground figures
4. Having "ties" to controversial religious figures
5. Talking about the potential use or nonuse of Nuclear Weapons by the US.
6. Guns
7. Elitism (I'm not going to link to that -just think about it)
8. And now the Teamsters

In fact, it's getting to the point that when you hear Hillary accuse Obama of saying something you can pretty much guess that she's already said it herself.

Can we be done now please?

UPDATE II: VETTY-VETTY-VET-VET

Carl Bernstein in a piece shaming Hillary for having attacked Obama using guilt-by-association on his "ties" with Weather Underground member William Ayers, puts some more meat on the bones of Hillary's own ties to controversial 60's figures. Apparently she only gives her work with the Oakland lawfirm (Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein) which defended the Black Panthers a single line in her bio "Living History".

This is not to say that her associations with "communists" mean anything -they don't (I mean really dude, that's sooooo 50-years-ago.), but that it's appalling that she would attack Obama with that weapon when his "ties" pale in comparison to hers. It's like grabbing the blade of a sword and trying to bludgeon someone with the handle.

And once again: has this been "vetted"? NO.

UPDATE: VET THIS

The other day I posted a piece about how I don't get how the Hillary camp can make the arguments either that she's been vetted --or that "vetting" even matters in regard to how the republicreeps will proceed in the fall.

As if on cue comes this piece in Slate magazine which should fan the flames of freeperdom. Apparently there are numerous rumors posited in a new book "Clinton in Exile" by Carol Felsenthal that Bill Jeff (as Carlin called him) has far from repented since the salad days of the mediocre Ms. M. In fact there are several accounts that BJC (oh the irony) has been tooling about with some bachelor buddies on their private jets in search of "cigar-boxes".

To be fair the piece in Slate makes it plain that the book over all is pretty boring and poorly sourced. But guess what? It doesn't matter how poorly sourced they are or w/r these rumors are true or not -the GOPbots will click into overdrive and they'll be wall to wall over the "info"-stream.

The result? "Ladies and Gentlemen the 44th President of the United States: John Sidney McCain III. "

So a) being "vetted" is illusory at best and b) as John Avrosis says these allegations have certainly not been vetted.

...Sorry to interrupt -you may now return to singing "Gas Tax Holiday" Carols.