She's Not Dead Yet

Karl Rove told Fox viewers that a prolonged Democratic battle could knock John McCain off the front pages and hurt his effort.

On CNN, Paul Begala was excited by news that McCain would visit the White House today for a Bush embrace. "Democrats -- we're jumping up and down at that prospect," he said.

"Nobody will confuse John McCain with George Bush," Bill Bennett countered.

The only suspense on the Republican side, of course, was whether John McCain would hit the magic number of 1,191, thereby forcing Mike Huckabee to stop making appearances on the "The Colbert Report." All the cable networks declared at 9 o'clock that McCain had gone over the top. "No great surprise, but it gives us something to talk about," Brit Hume conceded.

Matthews talked up McCain's November chances, saying: "It is ironic that the man who represents the least change is in the solidest position right now."

Kelly O'Donnell provided a reminder of the journalistic malpractice of last year by saying that months ago McCain "was much figured to be out of the race." Pretty much figured by media people, that is.

With Ohio and Texas too close to call, the underlying assumption at MSNBC was that Hillary is unnecessarily prolonging the race. "When does it become clear that the Clintons are interested in the Clintons and not the Democratic Party?" Matthews asked.

Fox seemed to regard Obama as the inevitable nominee. He gives high-flying speeches, Fred Barnes said, and "McCain has to bring him down to earth."

It was 9:20 when Huckabee took the stage, congratulated McCain and vowed to work for his election. But MSNBC interrupted him to project Hillary the winner in Rhode Island, breaking her 12-contest losing streak.

MSNBC was a little slow on the uptake, putting up a banner that said "Sources: Huckabee To Drop Out of Race." Unfortunately, the former governor had already told the world he was getting out.

Interesting that McCain called for bringing the war to "the swiftest possible conclusion" without endangering our interests there. I guess he's off the 100-year thing. That is a not-so-subtle repositioning of the kind that doesn't happen by accident.

Soon it was back to speculation about the Dems. Joe Scarborough said the pundits were trying to "bury" Hillary but that she could still win the night. Everything had to be framed in the hypothetical. At one point Obama and Hillary each had 711,000 votes in Texas. "Has Obama peaked?" Bill Kristol asked.