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First came Harold Ickes, who gave a presentation about Hillary Rodham Clinton's prospects that severed all ties with reality. "We're on the way to locking this nomination down," he said of a candidate who appears, if anything, headed in the other direction.
But before the breakfast crowd had a chance to digest that, they were served another, stranger course by Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer. Asked about an accusation on the Drudge Report that Clinton staffers had circulated a photo of Barack Obama wearing Somali tribal dress, Singer let 'er rip.
"I find it interesting that in a room of such esteemed journalists that Mr. Drudge has become your respected assignment editor," he lectured. "I find it to be a reflection of one of the problems that's gone on with the overall coverage of this campaign." He went on to chide the journalists for their "woefully inadequate" coverage of Obama, "a point that has been certainly backed up by the 'Saturday Night Live' skit that opened the show this past Saturday evening, which I would refer you all to."
The brief moment explained everything about the bitter relations between Clinton's campaign and the media: Singer taunting the likes of Broder, who began covering presidential politics two decades before Singer was born, with a comedy sketch that showed debate moderators fawning over Obama.
"That's your assignment editor?" responded Post columnist Ruth Marcus.
"That's my assignment editor," Singer affirmed.
Perhaps having a campaign spokesman who believes SNL more influential than Drudge reveals why the Clinton folks seem about ready to suffer the old stage hook and get yanked off the proscenium.
Ickes is in a certified-dotage mode as he plaintively inquires which month the PA primary is going to be held. He was old when I worked for him in '68 in NYC---now he is far beypnd the alloted biblical three-score and ten:
Yesterday, Ickes played the good cop. "We think we are on the verge of our next up cycle," he reported, even suggesting the apparent impossibility that Clinton "may be running even" with Obama when all the contests are over. "This race is very close," he judged. "This is tight as a tick."
The reporters were dubious. The Monitor's Dave Cook mused about the consequences of Clinton "battling after there's not much chance."
"For the love of God, we can't say there's not much chance here," Ickes maintained.
David Chalian of ABC News reminded Ickes that Obama's lead in delegates is now of the size Ickes had said would be "significant."
"As we all know in this city, I have a very short memory," Ickes answered.
At one point, he warned of "a bitter and potentially very divisive credentials fight" at the Democratic convention. At another point, he compared the race to 1972, when a strong front-runner, Ed Muskie (now played by Clinton), was upended by an antiwar candidate, George McGovern (now played by Obama), who lost to the Republicans. "The fact is he could not carry his weight in the general election," Ickes argued.
But Ickes could suspend reality for only so long. He referred to Clinton's opponent at one point as "Senator Barack," swapped 1992 for 1972 and Michigan for Vermont, and said of the Pennsylvania primary: "Um, what month is it?" Eventually, Carl Leubsdorf of the Dallas Morning News drew a confession out of Ickes: "I think if we lose in Texas and Ohio, Mrs. Clinton will have to make her decisions as to whether she goes forward or not."
Ickes's return to Earth seemed only to further outrage Singer.
Read the link on top for the entire freaking over-the-top meltdown.
Meanwhile a national CBS poll shows Obama 16 points up over Clinton and pulling away. Even more interesting:
When all registered voters were asked who they favored in a head-to-head general election match up between Obama and McCain, Obama led by 12 percentage points, 50 to 38 percent.
In a Clinton-McCain match up, registered voters were evenly split, with 46 percent backing each candidate.
Obama beats McCain by 10 points among independents, while McCain beats Clinton by 17 points among that group.
And the New York Times describes a five-point "kitchen sink" fusillade about to be unleashed on Obama from the Clinton armada.
Clinton advisers said the attacks were partly an effort to knock Mr. Obama off balance before the debate on Tuesday.
They also said they were sending a signal to supporters that Mrs. Clinton was still resolutely fighting to win the presidential nomination, despite news reports in recent days about her dispirited campaign operation and her own somber outlook on the race.
To bolster her case at the George Washington speech, Mrs. Clinton stood on stage with a half-dozen retired military officials, including Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who introduced her. “I’m convinced that when the going gets tough, Hillary Clinton will never let America down,” General Clark said.
Mrs. Clinton pointed to her time in the Senate and in the White House as the first lady as evidence that she was the candidate who was most knowledgeable and prepared for the presidency.
However, this evening's cable and network news all comment on just how little impact Clinton's claim of "35 years of public service" and counting her First Lady as "experience" is having on audiences, Democratic audiences. Indeed, the touting of being the wife of a governor [while practicing law for a top-notch Arkansas firm] and tallying her White House years as "experience and public service" appears to be having a backlash effect, as it reminds prospective voters that Hillary's candidacy, like her "experience," comes attached to the outsized and controversial Bubba---who as Mitt Romney reminded viewers, would be lurking in the White House "looking for things to do," surely the most subtle euphemism for his bad habits and lack of discipline yet devised.
The Lincoln Bedroom werewolf has yet to be dispatched with a silver bullet.
Many voters appear to think that Obama will relieve us of this national disgrace with a wooden stake or silver bullet that allows Bubba to shuffle off his political mortal coil.
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