The media left really, really, wants Hillary Clinton's campaign to be over, and this piece by Dana Milbank in the Washington Post is a good illustration of that. It's also rather amusing in its own right:
Customer: "Look, matey, I know a dead parrot when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now."
Pet-shop owner: "No, no he's not dead, he's -- he's resting! Remarkable bird, the Norwegian blue, isn't it, aye? Beautiful plumage!"
-- From "Monty Python's Flying Circus"
11:45 a.m., Melrose Hotel, Foggy Bottom: It's Day 7 of the Clinton Campaign Death Watch -- a full week since the official arbiter of the Democratic primary, Tim Russert, declared the campaign over and Barack Obama the nominee. Hillary Clinton's advisers continue to insist that the candidate's prospects are very much alive, but the press isn't buying it. Exhibit A: There are two press buses waiting at the hotel here for Clinton's trip to her victory rally in West Virginia, but the entire press contingent doesn't quite fill one. It isn't until the entourage arrives at Dulles Airport that Clinton aides learn that the second bus is still idling, empty, at the hotel.
If there is importance in the results of the primary in West Virginia, the press corps isn't letting on. During the security sweep at Dulles, some play Hacky Sack with a cigarette carton. Awaiting the candidate on the tarmac, two guys from CNN toss a football. Aboard the plane, one member of the press corps entertains his colleagues by flopping down the aisle on his belly, like a fish.
But Clinton, wearing a salmon-colored jacket and dark sunglasses, is all smiles as she boards the jet. She hugs and kisses her campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe. Still grinning, she helps herself to a cracker with spread from the snack tray as the plane taxis to the runway. And why shouldn't she be happy? Within minutes, Clinton has crossed the Blue Ridge and is over the green hills of West Virginia, home of what she calls the "hardworking Americans, white Americans." This is Clinton Country.
Customer: "That parrot is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not half an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it being tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk."
Pet-shop owner: "Well, he's, he's, ah, probably pining for the fiords."
2:57 p.m., Yeager Airport, Charleston, W.Va.: A steep descent brings Clinton's plane to Charleston's hilltop airport. After an appropriate wait, she steps from the plane and pretends to wave to a crowd of supporters; in fact, she is waving to 10 photographers underneath the airplane's wing. She pretends to spot an old friend in the crowd, points and gives another wave; in fact, she is waving at an aide she had been talking with on the plane minutes earlier.
OK, so nobody likes Clinton anymore. Her campaign is dead in the water. Got it.
But then what should I make of this picture from an Obama campaign appearance earlier this year?
Gee, that's a lot of empty seats for The Change We've Been Waiting For.
It's the sort of embarrassing photo that rarely reaches publication thanks to tacit collaboration between Democratic Party candidates and the press.
The press have now withdrawn their cooperation from Hillary Rodham Clinton, and every empty hall in her campaign will be fair game until she finally surrenders and leaves the race.
Go ahead, media, pile on. In another week or two, John McCain will begin receiving the same treatment, presumably continuing on a daily basis until November.
Go ahead -- expose Hillary Clinton's campaign for the stage-managed fraud that it is.
Once in a while, though, I'd like to read about the stage managing of Barack Obama's campaign. I'd like to see coverage that acknowleges that the leading candidate also has feet of clay.
Wouldn't that be a refreshing change -- coverage that exposes the preening and exaggeration of all the candidates? Is that too much to ask? Let political news, for once, be real.
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