From ABC News’ Jake Tapper:

March 10, 2008 6:12 PM

At Ravello’s Café-Pizza in Scranton, Penn., just now, I asked Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., about the talk of a Clinton-Obama ticket, which has been ginned up by her, her husband, and her campaign chairman.

(More on that HERE or watch HERE) (JRL: apparently the links didn’t transfer, but they are video of Sen. Clinton and former President Clinton talking about a Clinton/Obama ticket.)

Her answer was quite strange, considering it’s been her camp fueling this buzz.

TAPPER: “Senator, how do you reconcile your suggestion that maybe Senator Obama would be appropriate to be on a Clinton-Obama ticket while at the same time you are suggesting that he isn’t prepared to be commander-in-chief?”

CLINTON: “Well this thing has really been given a life of its own. You know, a lot of Democrats like us both and have been very hopeful that they wouldn’t have to make a choice, but obviously Democrats have to make a choice and I’m looking forward to getting the nomination. And it’s premature to talk about whoever might be on whose ticket, but I believe that I am ready to serve on day one.”

Bizarre.

Sen. Obama poked fun at Sen. Clinton today on the stump for making the suggestion, maybe that had something to do with it. Or, maybe Hillary did inhale and she’s got the same short term memory loss the rest of us Boomers suffer. Where ARE those Twinkies?

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Does anyone remember the Blazing Saddles performance of the “I’m so tired” song? An hilarious send-up of Marlene Dietrich, I thought.

Well, I realized yesterday that part of the reason I support Obama over Clinton is that I’m so tired.

I’m tired of defending the Clintons. I’ve been doing it since at least ’98, a decade now.

Is it offensive and just plain wrong to say Hillary killed Vince Foster? Oh, hell yes and even Ken Starr says so. It doesn’t matter. The 50% of the country that doesn’t like her just can’t be persuaded. Not about that, not about Whitewater, not about Filegate, Travelgate or any of the rest of it.

And, if she’s the nominee, I’ll have further fruitless conversations in this very red state about pardons and Khazakstan and Ron Burkle.

I guess it’s what some people call “Clinton fatigue”.

I just think she’ll never get to argue about policy — about Iraq, Afghanistan, the economy, the ecology or health care — because we’ll all be too busy fending off personal attacks against her. There will be re-run “swing state” elections in Ohio and Florida because she’s running an updated version of the losing campaigns of Gore and Kerry, depending on the reliably blue states and hoping to pull out two more here and there.

I flat don’t want to do that any more. A decade of stupid talking points is my limit. I don’t even like that this primary campaign emphasizes her experience and her “vetting”. Obama says he’s released his tax returns, it’s time for her to do the same and all at once, she’s calling him Ken Starr. That just makes me tired; not even angry, just tired.

I’m also tired of Sen. Clinton’s poking of Obama on Rezko. It’s Whitewater all over again. After all the questions and all the investigations, it turns out that Obama never did Rezko a favor and there’s nothing — not one iota of evidence — that connects him with any wrongdoing, much less evidence that he profited from his connection to Rezko. There’s less there than there is evidence that Hillary and Bill profited from Madison Guaranty all those years ago in Arkansas. It’s an attack by her that mirrors the attacks on her. If it’s unfair when she’s the target of such attacks, it’s unfair when she’s the source of such attacks.

It’s not Hillary’s fault that there are idiots out there. That’s no reason to vote for anyone or against anyone.

Hillary’s over-reaction to any critical comment, however, is her own responsibility.

For Hillary to take to the airwaves over Canadian comments about back-channel discussions regarding NAFTA when it turns out it was HER campaign that started that whole mess, that’s her responsibility and it says something about the integrity of her campaign. It’s one thing for Sen. Clinton to say she’s more qualified to be commander in chief than Sen. Obama, but it’s quite another to give Sen. McCain a pass and diss another Democrat while doing so. That also tells me something about her and her campaign that I don’t find attractive — a “with me or against me” attitude that is variously described as “polarizing”.

I’ve been loyal. I’ve had my nostalgia for the peace and prosperity of the Clinton administration. I’ve defended her and would again against unfair attacks from any quarter. I admire her willingness and ability to fight and fight back. I simply prefer to fight and fight back about issues and not personalities, campaign finances and connections and the role of an unelected, impeached former president being back in the White House.

At bottom, I’d prefer to fight about the 21st Century and not stuff that happened in the 20th Century.

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Nah, I ain’t talkin’ politics, I’m talkin’ family. My neice went to the hospital yesterday morning at 6 a.m. to have labor induced and my sister didn’t call with news of the birth of Chase, her new grandson, until just before midnight their time. That’s one long night. MindOverMary was exhausted, as I’m sure was my neice, but neice had the “good drugs” and Mimi, as she insists she’ll be known by, was dead tired. It’s a happy night for my family.

By now, y’all know Sen. Clinton won three of the four primaries yesterday and Sen. Obama won in Vermont. Texas was close, Ohio less close and R.I. a big win for the New York senator. In the topsy turvey world of Democratic politics, it looks like Hillary will only pick up less than a dozen delegates out of 360 allocated last night against Obama’s 100+ delegate lead. Onward to Pennsylvania.

I’ll say I have to hand it to Sen. Clinton; she portrayed herself as a fighter and after losing 12 states in a row, she fought hard and won this round. I admire her for it. I’m not crazy about the fact that she “went negative”, but I thought she stayed on the right side of dirty — that her negative attacks were in bounds. I couldn’t help but think last night about a unity ticket with both of them as running mates, as improbable as that seems now.

Obama’s problem going forward is that he can’t go negative and stay true to his claims to a “new politics”. Between now and Pennsylvania, he will likely win in the Wyoming caucuses and in the Mississippi primaries. That’ll help. Pennsylvania is seven weeks away and he will need that time to work and organize there, and the longer he has to campaign, it seems the better he does. He has another “firewall” in North Carolina after PA. I would say that sometime very soon, he will have to have a press conference in which he allows those Chicago reporters to wear themselves out with Rezko and just get it all out there. Maybe he can do the same with that NAFTA Canadian cross talk stuff that I’m sure hurt him in Ohio. I think he’s already effectively blunted the 3 a.m. phone call ads.

McCain sewed up the GOP nomination and Huckabee, as expected, bowed out. Sen. McCain has the problem over the next few weeks of needing to shore up his base and raise some money and do some organizing for the general election. It’ll be hard for him to get much airtime over the next little while because the Democratic race is so much more interesting and exciting, it will suck all the air out of the room for him. Today, he goes to the White House to pick up President Bush’s endorsement.

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MindOverMary is going to become Mimi the grandmother of my neice’s son, Chase, when labor is induced at 6 a. m. Tuesday March 4. My LeftCoastSister’s birthday is March 5. I have a grandchild with a day-off birthday with my son. It’s a knit one, pearl two kinda thing with birthdays through the calendar in my family. I’m happy for them in advance, but 6 am their time is 5 am my time and I’m not up at that hour at no time.

I’d like to tell you something about the elections today, but I can’t. I don’t think anyone else can talk with confidence, either. The polls are very volatile. Obama had been coming up and pulling ahead until Sunday and Hillary looks like she has stopped the wave and started pulling herself back up Sunday and Monday. Is this the SNL effect? Is it the Rezco trial? Is it McCain and Hillary both working on him at the same time? Is it just a quirk in the polling samples because different polls are showing very different things? I can not tell you and I’ve done my best to study up on it. The two big national daily “tracking” polls are Rassmussen and Gallup and they both show Hillary narrowing Obama’s recent lead on Sunday and Monday.

I will say that my best guess is that ice and cold weather in north Ohio may supress the vote, especially for older voters who are, in the main, Hillary voters. However, as I recall, most of Ohio’s northern tier is Obama’s anyway and that there was early voting, so it might not matter one way or another when it comes to delegates. Obama has outspent her 2-1 on media in both Ohio and Texas and has purchased a 2 minute “closer” during television news Monday night, an extraordinary move. Reading tealeaves, Obama’s schedule has him spending the last two days of the campaign in Texas and I’d say he’s going to his strength and expects to do better there than in Ohio. At least a couple hundred thousand have already voted in Texas. Hillary’s campaign is reported ready to file suit over the dual primary/caucus system in Texas if they don’t like the results. Best I can tell, Hillary will win R.I. and Obama will win Vermont, the sideshows tomorrow.

Oklahoma’s weather is killing me. I had the top down. Then there were tornados. Then it snowed. WTF?

I spent the weekend tucked away at home, just me and Sinatra. Watched a movie: American Gangster. Did chores. Boring.

Sis, hurry up! then wait. Call me.

First, there’s a new Obama “viral” video to follow the will.i.am “Yes We Can” one that was so popular.

HERE’S the link.

I’ve never seen such carefully crafted propaganda. It’s the absolute culmination of Leni Reifenstahl’s (sp?) work for the Nazis. I really like the guy, but this is a little creepy to me. Am I just in the wrong demographic? This is directed toward the Millenials or something and I was … I dunno … trespassing? Am I the only one who finds this, humm, so good it’s too good? The first one holds up for me, although others saw it differently, but this one, I just got my doubts.

Help?

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UPDATE: Nah, I ain’t the ONLY one. Here’s Slate’s nearly identical take.