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.

Sen. Obama told a black south Texas audience today that they should turn off their tvs, help the kids with their homework and do better than feed the kids cold Popeye’s chicken for breakfast.

He’s got Bill Cosby’s vote.

What other presidential candidate has America had that could get away with that? This guy is a game changer.

Amazing.

He wrote an open letter to the GLTB community saying they should come into the big tent and he favors state action to allow civil unions, etc.

He put his balls on the line for that one.

Hillary put up an attack ad, a so called “red phone” ad, and there was a response ad playing within hours — a good one.

Amazing.

They say he may raise as much as $60 million this month with most guessing around $50 million. Average donation: $109. Total number of contributors: 1,000,000. Percent “maxed out” at $2,300? 3%.

Amazing.

In a month — only 4 weeks! — he’s gone from 16 points behind in the polls in Texas to a slight lead. In Ohio, he’s gone from 24 points behind in the polls to 5 points behind and closing. He’s leading in North Carolina and has closed 15 points in Pennsylvania without ever running a single tv ad. He also leads in Vermont, but trails in R.I. (who knows?).

You don’t have to favor the guy to find these things to be rather singular in presidential politics. I saw it here in Oklahoma when David Boren first ran for governor and, from what I hear, it must have been like that when J. Howard Edmondson ran for governor. They were both come from behind unknown young outsiders who campaigned on “reform” and “change”. They also finessed the party “machine” and built their own volunteer and financial base. Both of them were judged good at the job, although Edmondson died very young and before he could rise to the federal level, as Boren did.

Since we’re getting into March Madness, please forgive me a basketball analogy. Sometimes, a “cinderella” team has a series of upsets in the NCAA brackets and gets to the final four or even the championship. Valvano’s North Carolina State is an example. I think Hillary’s campaign is like one of the heavyweights, the Duke or Kentucky if you will, who loses to the North Carolina State. The more highly ranked and perpetual powerhouse team just can’t quite shake the pesky upstart team and maybe gets ahead a little but can’t quite put ‘em away. The longer the upstart stays in the game, the more confidence they get and play lights out and have a little luck here and there and — next thing you know — gets a win to move to the next level of the bracket. If you go back to last year when they were first starting to campaign and Obama was a 20 point underdog, Clinton, at that time the undisputed heavyweight in the field, slacked off and didn’t put him away. She let him get ahead in Iowa, caught up in N.H. and pulled ahead in Nevada. He caught up in So. Carolina and hung in there with her, albeit ugly, through Super Tuesday. Then, his shots from behind the arc began to fall like he was Michael Jordan and he went on an 11-0 run. Now, she’s got more game than she can handle and it’s looking like her late flurry in Ohio and Texas are too little, too late.

The sports riff is a cheap one, but I especially wanted to use it to say that watching the campaigns is, for me, what sports is for other people. I like looking at the box scores. I have my “heroes”. It’s exciting for me because there’s much more at stake in politics than in a game or sport. Tiger Woods makes $30 million. Big deal. The federal budget is trillions. Patriots lost the Super Bowl? Ho Hum. My son in law goes to Mesopotamia? THAT’s a big deal. I was a lucky reporter to get to cover campaigns and I was lucky to be in a few. That adds to the excitement for me because beyond the policy, it’s great to watch a well-played game. Thought maybe you’d like to know why politics has so consumed my entries of late.

At least it’s only every other year.

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A PARTING SHOT TO TICKLE YOUR FANCY

You gotta read this, you just must.

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From ABC.com:

(GOP Nominee, Arizona U.S. Sen. John) McCain made the remarks today after receiving the endorsement of evangelical leader John Hagee, founder and senior pastor of the 19,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio.

Hagee cited McCain’s support of Israel and his opposition to legal abortion as reasons why he was backing him.

The pastor is best known in some Washington circles as a founder of Christians United for Israel and for his belief, as laid out in his book “Jerusalem Countdown” that the end of days scenario as spelled out in the Book of Revelation will occur after Russia, allied with the Islamic world, attacks Israel.

“Russia is going to get in that position and they are literally, with all that massive military force, going to attack Israel,” Hagee told ABC News in 2006. “This is recorded in Ezekiel 38 and 39. God himself is literally going to destroy that army. Decimate it.”

Hagee added that the confrontation would be followed by a Chinese army of 200 million coming to the city of Armageddon, where they will meet British and U.S. forces in the Battle of Armageddon.

“At that point, Jesus Christ returns to Earth and sets up his eternal kingdom in the city of Jerusalem and there’s 1000 years of peace,” Hagee said. “The Jewish people are going to see the supernatural hand of God preserve them and deliver them while the enemies of Israel are crushed. That’s the end-time story.” (Italics mine: JRL)

Asked if he subscribed to this theology, McCain furrowed his brow.

“All I can tell you is I’m proud to have Pastor Hagee’s support,” he said.

Hagee added that his “support of Israel has absolutely nothing to do with an end times prophetic scenario. Our support of Israel is because we feel their cause is just. … I support Sen. McCain because I know that he has pledged to be a strong defender of Israel.”

WOW.
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Am I the only one who remembers Mark Penn on TV about the time of the NH primary saying “cocaine” so often that the Edwards campaign manager stopped the television interview of the three managers and flat “pwnd” the sleazy effort to smear Obama as a druggie?

Here’s a list of films that did NOT win “Best Picture”:

1. The Shawshank Redemption
2. The Sixth Sense
3. Fight Club
4. Blade Runner
5= It’s a Wonderful Life
5= The Great Escape
7= Taxi Driver
7= Psycho
9. Singin’ in the Rain
10. Dr Strangelove

I’d like to add to the list the following two:

Malcolm X by Spike Lee and I’m still really pissed that Denzel Washington didn’t win for “Best Actor” in the same film

and

wait for it

The “best” film of all time, “Citizen Kane”, which didn’t win “Best Picture”.

Just say’n.

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