Mullings An American Cyber Column By Rich Galen

US & Int'l Papers

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You Say You Want a Coronation?

Friday May 16, 2008

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The Popular Press is lined up outside the tuxedo rental places here in Your Nation's Capital, to get ready for what they all assume will be the Coronation of Sen. Barack Obama as the Nominee for President of the Democratic Party after the primaries in Kentucky and Oregon.

The endorsement of John Edwards yesterday, one assumes, also brings his eleven delegates with him. That would put Obama, according to CNN's count, at 1,910 delegates only 115 short of the 2,025 to have a majority.

Kentucky (60 delegates) and Oregon (65 delegates) will hold their primaries on Tuesday. Assuming Obama and Clinton split them about evenly, that will give Obama 62-or-so more delegates meaning he will be only about 53 delegates shy of the magic number which the Popular Press will cede to him because he will need less than half of the 110 delegates left to be chosen in the final three primaries on June 1 (Puerto Rico) and June 3 (Montana and South Dakota).

Drat.

I really, REALLY, wanted the Democrats to have floor fights over every semicolon in the platform, every credential issued to every staff member, every seat assigned to every alternate, and every speaking position in the convention program.

Meanwhile on the campaign trail �

President Bush, speaking to the Israeli Knesset warned against trying to appease an enemy:

"Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along."

While that generated applause among the members of the Israeli parliament, the Obama campaign, showing a thickness of skin which can be measured in angstroms, wailed that Bush was accusing Obama of favoring appeasement in dealing with Israel's enemies.

How Barack decided that the President was talking about him, still mystifies me.

Associated Press reporter, Liz Sidoti, reminded us that Obama might be just a little sensitive to the appeaser tag, thus:

The first-term Illinois senator responded to the comments as if they were criticism of his position [as stated in one of the 2,347 debates] that as president he would be willing to personally meet with Iran's leaders and those of other regimes the United States has deemed rogue.

SIDEBAR

I am willing to bet a bottle of Absinthe that Sidoti did not write the words "regimes the United States has deemed to be rogue."
That is an archaic construct similar to the Winston Churchill quote (after he had been accused of dangling a participle) I used a couple of weeks ago "That is the kind of thing, up with which, I will not put."
It may also be the Associated Press' way of suggesting, as Hamlet's mama did in Act 3, Scene 2 "The [young Senator] doth protest too much, methinks."

END SIDEBAR

I was on ABC News yesterday afternoon with Sam Donaldson and, after watching a clip of the President's remarks, I said that I assumed the President was talking about Jimmy Carter.

New Topic: Mississippi

There is no way to put a positive spin on the loss of Sen. Roger Wicker's (R-Miss) House seat in a special election this past Tuesday.

According to the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, Wicker "had held the district easily since 1994 -- never winning reelection with less than 63 percent of the vote."

This was the third special election the GOP has lost in Districts which had been held by Republicans.

I ran into the brilliant national political reporter for USA Today, Susan Page, yesterday and she asked if this was a "wake up call" for the House Republican Leadership." I was cranky and I said, "A wake up call is one thing. After you are awakened, you have to have some idea of what you're supposed to be doing that day."

As I am certain we were off the record, I am not concerned that I will be deemed disloyal, to use the AP construct.

Quote of the Day:

Following the announcement that the California Supreme Court ruled that Gay Marriage was legal in that state, the San Jose Mercury News had this quote on its website:

"I was blown away," said Merrie Schaller, co-chair of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Alliance of Santa Cruz."

I � I can't top that.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Lot's o' Links: The lyrics to the Beatles song "Revolution"; the NY Times delegate counter graphic; Liz Sidoti's AP piece; the definition of an "angstrom"; and a link to the San Jose Mercury News piece.

Also, a Mullfoto which made me giggle when I thought about it and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

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