In response to this Politico article, Hillary's campaign said this:

ABC News' Kate Snow and Eloise Harper report:  It’s not over.

That’s the message out of the Clinton campaign today.

But it will be eventually, right? This will end in June, right? Please? Before June? Maybe? Huh, huh, huh?

“Sen. Clinton has been counted out many times in this campaign,” said communications director Howard Wolfson.  “The press has on several occasions decided the campaign was over, Sen. Clinton was through..."

Wait, what?  "The real question is why so many people are playing. The answer has more to do with media psychology than with practical politics. Journalists, for instance, have become partners with the Clinton campaign in pretending that the contest is closer than it really is. [...]  Reporters and editors love a close race — it’s more fun and it’s good for business." 

And each time voters decided ... the campaign was not over.”

Wolfson said he had no idea who the unnamed “important Clinton advisor” was, but said that the ten percent comment did not reflect sentiment within the campaign.

Well, what's he going to say, "Yes, that 10% comment reflects exactly what our campaign believes, that Hillary doesn't have a chance in hell to win"?

Here's the comment: "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." 

He did add this caveat:

“Obviously, we have to do well,” he said.  “There’s no question about that.”

There. Just thought you'd want to know that Hillary's still in the race. You know, in case someone out there had other ideas. 

From the Department of Irony:

The CEO of a company whose employee is accused of improperly accessing the passport files of presidential candidates is a consultant to the Obama campaign, a source familiar with the firm said Saturday.

John Brennan, president of The Analysis Corporation (TAC), advises the Illinois Democrat on foreign policy and intelligence issues, the source said.

He might want to re-think that "intelligence" part of his title. 

Brennan briefed the media on behalf of the campaign earlier this month. The executive is a former senior CIA official and former interim director of the National Counterterrorism Center. He contributed $2,300 to the Obama campaign in January.

When asked about the contribution, a State Department official told CNN's Zain Verjee, "We ethically awarded contacts. Political affiliation is not one of the factors that we check."

That's where he differs with BushCo. But I digress. 

The department does not check the "personal activities of that nature of the officers of the corporation." Contracts are "competitively awarded," the official added. 

Irony isn't dead after all. 

No evidence, no jail terms?

(AP) Older White House computer hard drives have been destroyed, the White House disclosed to a federal court Friday in a controversy over millions of possibly missing e-mails from 2003 to 2005.

The White House revealed new information about how it handles its computers in an effort to persuade a federal magistrate it would be fruitless to undertake an e-mail recovery plan that the court proposed.

It's also fruitless to undertake any effort to nail BushCo. But let's keep trying. 

Under pressure to provide details about its computer system, the White House told the congressional committee that it never completed work that began in 2003 on a planned records management and e-mail archiving system. The White House canceled the project in late 2006 and says it is still working on a new version.

In the absence of a permanent archiving system, the White House has been archiving e-mails on White House servers since early in the administration.

The White House says it does not know if any e-mails are missing, but is looking into the matter.

And by "looking into the matter" they mean starting a new war with Iran, destroying the economy, and prying into the passport files of Barack Obama and others. 

That was my Dana Carvey impression of his Bush 41 impression. Here's another impression: Edwards won't endorse.

John Edwards is unlikely to endorse either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton before the nomination is decided, according to interviews with several members of the former candidate's inner circle.

At least three individuals who have recently spoken to Edwards expect that he will choose to stay out of the fight, though they warn that no one other than his wife, Elizabeth, can be certain of his thinking.

A former Edwards operative says he wants to "remain neutral and sort of try to play on that Al Gore status as party elder” and let the people decide.

“He is genuinely torn between the two,” the adviser added. “On the big change, money and politics, he obviously agrees more with Barack. I think on the toughness and experience in life, making difficult decisions, I think he believes Hillary is more ready for the job. I also think that he thinks the way she has pursued his support has a level of seriousness he has not seen from the other guy.”

"The other guy"? Who would that be, John Sidney Hussein McPain? Ohhh, he must mean Barack Hussein Obama. That other guy. 

His close aides also said also said "he has spoken several times with Gore about the race."  You know, that other other guy.

While Edwards’ advisers don’t expect an endorsement, they are quick to note that he may turn around and surprise them. 

So he won't endorse unless he does endorse, which he won't, but he might.

I'm glad that's finally settled.

More on the Hillary and NAFTA issue, via Jake Tapper:

I have now talked to three former Clinton Administration officials whom I trust who tell me that then-First Lady Hillary Clinton opposed the idea of introducing NAFTA before health care, but expressed no reservations in public or private about the substance of NAFTA.

Yet the Clinton campaign continues to propagate this myth that she fought NAFTA tooth and nail because she opposed the substance of the bill. The campaign claims over and over that she did not support NAFTA. That may be emotionally and intellectually true -- but actions speak louder than misgivings.

So many quotes, so little space:

...Laura E. Jones, executive director of the United States Association of Importers of Textiles and Apparel, who was there. "There was no question that everyone who spoke including the First Lady was for NAFTA, it was a rally on behalf of NAFTA to help it get passed. It's unquestionable. And there are many people out there who were there who remember the incident who work in this industry."

Finally:

"This is such a non issue to us, because obviously it was a pro-NAFTA group and a pro-NAFTA event," says Hughes. "It was a 100 percent pro-NAFTA event. No one suggested any inklings of doubt since part of the agenda was to promote enthusiasm for passage of NAFTA."

Did that include then-First Lady Clinton?

"Absolutely. She was the highlight of the event. She was absolutely the capper to the event. It was a positive rally. I assure you if there had even been a hint of waffling from her -- because we were in the last days before NAFTA passed and it was a pretty hectic time -- we would have freaked out."

4 Pinocchios? 

She gets 4 Pinocchios from Michael Dobbs for this one:

The caption under the photo above reads:

Greeting ceremony, Tuzla military airport, Bosnia, March 25, 1996.

A March 17th speech by Hillary included:

"I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

--Hillary Clinton, speech at George Washington University, March 17, 2008.

This article states:

As a reporter who visited Bosnia soon after the December 1995 Dayton Peace agreement, I can attest that the physical risks were minimal during this period, particularly at a heavily fortified U.S. Air Force base, such as Tuzla. Contrary to the claims of Hillary Clinton and former Army secretary Togo West, Bosnia was not "too dangerous" a place for President Clinton to visit in early 1996. In fact, the first Clinton to visit the Tuzla Air Force base was not Hillary, but Bill, on January 13, 1996. [...]

Far from running to an airport building with their heads down, Clinton and her party were greeted on the tarmac by smiling U.S. and Bosnian officials. An eight-year-old Moslem girl, Emina Bicakcic, read a poem in English. An Associated Press photograph of the greeting ceremony, above, shows a smiling Clinton bending down to receive a kiss.

Lissa Muscatine, who served as Hilary Clinton's chief speechwriter in 1996 and accompanied her on the Bosnia trip, says:

I was on the plane with then First Lady Hillary Clinton for the trip from Germany into Bosnia in 1996. We were put on a C17-- a plane capable of steep ascents and descents -- precisely because we were flying into what was considered a combat zone. We were issued flak jackets for the final leg because of possible sniper fire near Tuzla. As an additional precaution, the First Lady and Chelsea were moved to the armored cockpit for the descent into Tuzla. We were told that a welcoming ceremony on the tarmac might be canceled because of sniper fire in the hills surrounding the air strip. From Tuzla, Hillary flew to two outposts in Bosnia with gunships escorting her helicopter.

The Fact Checker says:

Clinton's tale of landing at Tuzla airport "under sniper fire" and then running for cover is simply not credible. Photographs and video of the arrival ceremony, combined with contemporaneous news reports, tell a very different story. Four Pinocchios.

Anyone else balkin'?

This is from TPM:

[T]his afternoon, just before going to a meeting, I posted a link to The Politico article on Hillary Clinton's chances of winning the nomination and expressed my agreement with it. [Laffy note: This one] When I returned I fully expected an avalanche of emails from Hillary supporters. But when I did return, nothing, or nearly so. Even the few we did get barely seemed to have their heart in it.

This is, I grant you, a highly unscientific measure. But I wonder whether the collapse of the revote negotiations, the revelation that the campaign is in debt and the Richardson endorsement together are collectively forcing a moment of realization.

In Comments here, I've been hearing that on Hardball, they've essentially been saying that Hillary should give it up, she's lost. It's a refrain I've heard publicly more and more.

I've noticed that there are fewer protests in our Comments, too. We used to get vehement, screaming Hillary voters denouncing, renouncing, and rejecting Obama, and not from our regulars, but new visitors to the site. 

What do you think? Are Josh Marshall and Chris Matthews right?

To: Mrs. George W. Bush, Mrs. Richard Cheney
From:  Bellevue

We regret to inform you that your spouses are suffering from something we call Psychotic Delusionus Swaggerus Idioticus... 

President Bush on Wednesday said something demonstrably false and inflammatory about Iran -- asserting that the Iranian government has "declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people."

The Iranians have never done any such thing -- and for Bush to say so at a time of great tension between the two countries is bizarre at best.

So why did he say it? Was he actively trying to misrepresent the situation? Was it just a slip of the tongue? Or does he believe it, despite the abundant evidence to the contrary? [...]

And yet, as disturbing as the third possibility is -- that Bush is operating in an alternate reality -- it's supported by this simple fact: He's said almost exactly the same thing at least once before.

Mrs. Bush, Mrs. Cheney, the urgency for restraint and the employment of straight jackets cannot be stressed enough. We assure you, we used only the best quality product, the latest models, and have made every effort to meet with their fashion consultants before choosing the hue we like to call "Warmonger Ecru"... 

In short, it seems clear that Bush remains convinced that the Iranians continue to pursue nuclear weapons. Does he also somehow believe they've acknowledged this publicly? Or that they may as well have? Is this the kind of stuff that Cheney -- often the last person to talk to Bush before important decisions -- whispers in his ear?

It's worth getting Bush on the record about exactly how he understands the facts here.

And -- especially after the suspicious dismissal of Admiral William J. "Fox" Fallon earlier this month, and given Cheney's conviction that the legislative branch can't limit the executive's war-making powers -- it may be worth asking ourselves if there's anything that would prevent the president and vice president from acting on their delusions.

Thank you for your understanding. Visiting hours are alternate Sundays, 8 am through 12 noon, at which time we force feed them Freedom Fries as a reward for participating in "Waterboarding for Military Wannabes". They seem to genuinely enjoy their time together, and we were especially pleased to grant their request to be handcuffed together during that particular activity.

Yours very sincerely,

Dr. Laffy, Psyche Ward 13, Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital

Who's in the mood for gossip? Hands? Okay, but you never heard it from me:

Richardson, in a statement posted Friday on the Web site of his defunct presidential campaign and e-mailed to supporters, also called for New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to end her own campaign for the nomination for the good of the Democratic Party.

Need more? Feeling feisty? Want some fodder? As in The Fodder of Our Country? Sorry, it's Friday.

Bill Richardson criticized a Clinton campaign adviser Friday for suggesting his endorsement of Barack Obama is insignificant.

"I resent the fact that the Clinton people are now saying that my endorsement is too late because I only can help with Texans — with Texas and Hispanics, implying that that's my only value," the New Mexico governor told CNN's John King. "That's typical of some of his advisers that kind of turned me off." [...]

In the interview Friday, Richardson also said he called Hillary Clinton Thursday to inform her of his decision to back Obama, a conversation he described as "painful."

"It was painful and it wasn't easy," he said. "I've spoken to others who have had that same conversation and they say at the end, it’s not all that pleasant."

The former Democratic presidential candidate declined to elaborate further on his conversation with Clinton.

Last month, Chris Dodd — another former presidential candidate who decided to endorse Obama last month — said he had a "not comfortable" conversation with Clinton informing her of the news.

That's it from Laffy Gossip Central.

5 reasons why the Governor Bill Richardson endorsement of Obama was just what the doctor ordered:

1. Timing. Two words: Reverend Wright.
2. Superdelegates.   Richardson is one. This sends a message to other superdelegates.
3. Richardson is close to both Clintons. "[S]ymbolically his connections with the Clintons will raise questions as to why he decided to turn his back on the New York senator, rather than remaining neutral in the nomination battle."
4. Experience. Richardson has it. If Obama can be "guilty by his association" with Rev Wright, then he can be experienced by his association with Richardson, who has an extensive foreign relations resume.
5. Hispanics. "Clinton still will be heavily favored to win the Puerto Rico primary in June, but as the first Hispanic candidate for president, Richardson's endorsement speaks to a weakness in Obama's candidacy."

This, or any, one endorsement isn't exactly like waving a magic wand over Obama's candidacy. But:

Richardson's endorsement and in particular his warning about the consequences of indefinite conflict may influence other Democrats still trying to decide what to do.