Broken news

By Edward Copeland

Michael referred in a post earlier today to a story at The Politico acknowledging what few in the media seem ready to do, either because of fear or ignorance. I thought I'd quote a little more of the article, because it is so great. I've had problems with The Politico in the past, but they are on the mark with this one, since even Clinton campaign officials admit its truth, unless they use pressure and chicanery to steal the nomination away from the voters in a way too eerily reminiscent of Florida 2000:

Her own campaign acknowledges there is no way that she will finish ahead in pledged delegates. That means the only way she wins is if Democratic superdelegates are ready to risk a backlash of historic proportions from the party’s most reliable constituency.

Unless Clinton is able to at least win the primary popular vote — which also would take nothing less than an electoral miracle — and use that achievement to pressure superdelegates, she has only one scenario for victory. An African-American opponent and his backers would be told that, even though he won the contest with voters, the prize is going to someone else.

People who think that scenario is even remotely likely are living on another planet.

As it happens, many people inside Clinton’s campaign live right here on Earth. One important Clinton adviser estimated to Politico privately that she has no more than a 10 percent chance of winning her race against Barack Obama, an appraisal that was echoed by other operatives.

This is just symptomatic of the media as a whole falling apart all over, such as Michael reported on with even Fox News anchors tiring of their anti-Obama coverage at the risk of their own jobs. (Hey Carl, looking for work? Fox may be hiring a good Obama hater like you soon, since Rupert Murdoch filled your gal's coffers before.)

What still amazes me is how far CNN has fallen (though I don't know why it should). When the passport breach story broke Thursday night, MSNBC was on it nearly immediately and pretty much stayed on it for the next three hours as developments happened. When there is breaking news, I'm prone to switch between all three news channels (and I use that term loosely) to see what they are doing. Not once when I switched to Fox or CNN was there even a mention of it. CNN was even playing a taped Larry King interview with Obama that obviously was made prior to the news. When CNN was live, believe it or not, they spent more time perpetuating the Jeremiah Wright story than even Fox was doing.

One other story that at least AP has picked up on (and that I at least heard mentioned on MSNBC) is how Hillary's chance are such a long shot not only because of delegate math, but because of money in the bank. According to the AP report, Obama has $30 million in the bank while Hillary is down to $3 million. Chuck Todd also reported on MSNBC that Obama is already on the air with TV ads in Pennsylvania where Hillary has yet to buy any air time.