Hillary didn’t really say this, did she? –

“My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it,” she said, dismissing calls to drop out.

I listened to/watched this vid for a long time, and never got to it. Maybe you have more patience and time, or maybe I missed it in the earlier portions, or maybe the vid did a skip on my computer, which it did in other spots. I’ll take the NY Post’s word for it for now.

That’s so politicially tone-deaf it defies belief.

Update, 10:25 p.m. — Okay, I’ve seen it. Pitiful. Her apology is also very weak.

Barack Obama is so objectively unfit he’s beyond hope, no matter how audacious. The link only has about one-third of why that’s the case; Obama’s attempt to distance himself from Jeremiah Wright on April 29 was way too little, way too late, and laughably, obviously insincere; a 7 year-old lying about consuming the contents of the cookie jar is more believable.

That leaves McCain. I share John Hawkins’s antagonism, though I don’t know if I share his refusal to vote for him, if only in self-defense against an Obama or Clinton presidency.

This is shaping up to be the worst choice since Nixon-McGovern. Actually, I’m beginning to think it is worse, making it THE worst in my lifetime.

Old Media has mostly ignored Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s poor showing among non-African-American voters, even though it was obvious way back in the early-March Ohio and Texas primaries. To the degree that there has been coverage of the situation at all, it has been presented as if there is something wrong with the voters, not Obama himself or his “message.” Clay Waters at NewsBusters noted the most egregious example of this thought process (”Hillary Winning Too Many White Votes”) when he reviewed recent coverage in the New York Times on Wednesday.

While at the same time decrying the injection of race into the campaign when anyone suggests that Obama pastor Jeremiah Wright’s “white supremacy” shtick is relevant, Old Media is mere inches away from calling the vast majority of non-African-American voters in at least eight states racists, aren’t they?

Here is how the last nine major primaries (with apologies to Rhode Island and Vermont) have gone for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Take a good look, because I don’t think you’ll see these stats anywhere else:

Sources:

• Vote percentages — Ohio, Texas, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon.
• African-American (AA) percentages of population — Wikipedia entries for the various states.
• AA percentage of total turnout — Mostly from the FiveThirtyEight.com blog; most recent figures are best estimates based on previous primaries.
• Obama percentage of AA vote — Mostly from “Democratic Exit Poll Results” at Fox News election coverage site; most recent figures are best estimates based on previous primaries.
• Obama percentage of non-AA vote — Calculated considering other factors just described.

Of the nine states, all went to Bush in 2004 except PA and OR. Of course a lot can happen in 5-1/2 months, but Obama’s horrible performance with non-African-Americans in every one of the Bush 2004 states would make them out of reach if the election were held today (except IN, which could be explained by a next-door-to-Illinois effect, and appears just as out of reach), and could swing Pennsylvania in the red-state direction. The fact that Obama’s problem isn’t present in Oregon, which is almost surely a Democratic presidential win no matter who is on the ballot, is of little significance.

It’s unusual to have to admit that Hillary Clinton has a valid point about anything — but she has a point when she talks about electability, and Old Media wants nothing of it.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

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UPDATE: From the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Dennis Hetzel (HT to first commenter below) —

Northern Kentuckians can take some faint pride in apparently not having as many racist tendencies as some of their brethren elsewhere in Kentucky.

….. Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties appeared to give Obama his greatest support among counties with 6 percent or less minority population. You could theorize that more voters here seemed to look beyond skin color in making their choice.

Clear implication 1: All Northern Kentuckians have some racist tendencies.

Clear implication 2: Anyone not voting for Obama is a racist and “seemingly” not able “to look beyond skin color in making their choice.”

Wow. The only provable racism I see in all of this is in the excerpted paragraphs.

….. But I Don’t Have Time For:

• From Captain Ed at Hot Air — “Did Democrats argue that Congress can hide legislation from the President?” Apparently, they failed “to include a large section of the farm bill Congress sent to the White House. They (then) argued that the omission did not make the bill invalid, and that Congress can choose to send only portions of bills for a presidential signature or veto.” It should be obvious, as Captain Ed asserts, that “Any hidden provisions not submitted to the executive should render the entire legislation invalid.”
• Mickey Kaus, (mostly) liberal, picked up on some creative writing at Bloomberg, whose reporting on the economy has gotten every bit as bad as AP’s — “Fewer Americans than forecast applied for unemployment benefits last week, indicating companies are reluctant to fire more workers even as the economy slows.” Kaus’s retort (scroll down a little): “Next consumers will be unexpectedly reluctant to cut back on purchases even as the economy slows. And manufacturers will be unexpectedly reluctant to cut production even as the economy slows. … Slowly, the realization may dawn that the economy is not slowing anymore! … But reporters will be not-unexpectedly reluctant to stop reporting that it is.”
• 20 days later, “Myanmar Says It Will Accept Aid.” Will anyone try to estimate how many have died or will die because of the unconscionable delay?
• Better late than never, I guess — this WSJ link, which I believe is public-accessible, has the breakdown on monthly and year-to-date vehicle sales. GM was down 16%, Ford down 12%, Chrysler down 23.5%, Toyota up 3%, Honda up 6%, Nissan up 7%. Chrysler’s result is more evidence beyond what was known two months ago, that the company, under Bob Nardelli, who is fresh off his years of plundering The Home Depot and getting paid outrageously when he went away, is playing a game of chicken, hoping that it can sell itself to somebody else while it still looks presentable — which may not be for long.
• RomneyCare is “the new Big Dig (HT to an e-mailer).” That John McCain is even considering Objectively Unfit Mitt for VP is scary. That talkers and other supposed conservatives are mostly ignoring the ongoing disaster in Massachusetts is in its own way even scarier.
• Misleading Headline of the Week: Sorry, TaxProf, this IS misleading — “IRS Clears Rev. Wright’s Church of Improperly Assisting Obama’s Campaign.” It wasn’t “Wright’s Church” (Trinity United Church of Christ), it was the United Church of Christ denomination, and the dispute was over one appearance at a denomination event. As far as I know, the legitimacy of TUCC’s tax-exempt status is still under investigation. The TaxProf headline makes it appear as if the TUCC is off the hook. Even the AP did a less deceptive, though still way short of acceptable, headline.

From Framingham, Massachusetts:

Posted May 09, 2008 @ 12:30 AM

Thirteen years after a fireball from a crashed plane burned most of her body, Shirley Badke finally got a chance yesterday to thank the Harvard University scientist whose medical creation saved her life.

“A huge honor to meet you,” she told cell biologist Dr. Howard Green at Genzyme Corp.’s New York Avenue Science Center, where the Cambridge biotech firm had just dedicated a conference room in his name. “Thank you.”

Inside the room, Badke and her doctor recounted her ordeal for Green and a group of Genzyme employees involved with Epicel, the company’s skin replacement product.

On Jan. 12, 1995, the Georgia woman was on the phone inside her Augusta office when she turned and saw a wall of flame racing her way. She could only manage a quick curse before the inferno engulfed her.

Covered in flames, Badke was pulled outside by her boss, who avoided the worst of the disaster.

“It was beautiful blue sky, but I saw bones in my fingers,” she said.

It turned out that a twin-engine Cessna had crashed near their office, skidding into the building and exploding in a torrent of flaming airplane fuel. Burned over 86 percent of her body, Badke was rushed to the Joseph M. Still Burn Center in Augusta and put in a drug-induced coma.

For the next seven months, the burn center’s Dr. Herman Orlett used patches of Epicel to slowly replace Badke’s skin, a difficult process not guaranteed to succeed.

“Had it not been for what we got from you folks, I don’t think she’d be here today,” Orlett told Green and the Genzyme group.

While today’s Epicel patches are bigger than the ones Badke received – 60 square centimeters, or about the size of a postcard, compared to 25 square centimeters – the process is basically the same, Genzyme staff said. A postage stamp-sized piece of undamaged skin is taken from the patient, then shipped to the company’s Cambridge lab.

Lab scientists take cells from the skin’s outer layer and begin growing colonies in incubated flasks, using cells from mice that act as “feeders” or “nurses” for reasons that are still not fully understood. The colonies form new sheets of skin, which are then placed under Vaseline-lined surgical gauze for protection during shipment.

Due to the delicate nature of the sheets – they are thinner than Saran Wrap – a human courier takes them on commercial jets to burn centers, with the lab’s special containers getting their own seats. The sheets are then grafted onto the patient, with the surgeon and the lab coordinating how many can be applied at one time and at what point the wounds are ready to receive the treatment.

In 16 days, the lab can produce enough skin to cover the whole body, or about 16 square feet.

With a number of patients able to receive skin grafts directly from other parts of their bodies, Epicel is only intended for those with severe and extensive burns like Badke. While her replacement skin has no sweat glands or ability to create pigment, she told the crowd she is happy to be alive and is not shy about going out in public.

“I’ve changed physically, but I’m still the same person,” she said. …..

Go here for the rest of the story.