Clinton Camp Chides NBC

Thursday, May 8, 2008

NO DISPUTE?

Clinton Camp Chides NBC

It's no secret that Hillary Clinton's top aides have long been angry at MSNBC for coverage they consider blatantly pro-Obama.

But the final straw seems to have come Tuesday night, when Tim Russert, NBC's Washington bureau chief, declared on MSNBC: "We now know who the Democratic nominee is going to be, and no one is going to dispute it." Other MSNBC pundits agreed, and Russert repeated the verdict yesterday, saying that barring a collapse by Barack Obama or an act of God, "this race is over."

In an e-mail yesterday, Jay Carson, Clinton's press secretary, told NBC's political director Chuck Todd: "Can you think of one good reason we should continue to cart you guys around the country with us, given that your network has declared the entire race over?"

This was not a serious threat to kick NBC reporters off the Clinton plane. Carson noted that he was just speaking "rhetorically," and besides, news organizations pay stiff fees for their campaign travel. An MSNBC spokesman declined to respond.

Still, ABC's George Stephanopoulos, CBS's Bob Schieffer and other television commentators also said the race is pretty much over. And Time's cover today features the Illinois senator with the headline "And The Winner Is . . ."

-- Howard Kurtz

'THE [OVAL] OFFICE'

A McCain-Schrute Ticket?

NEW YORK -- John McCain defended his attacks on Barack Obama during his appearance last night on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" and suggested he might pick a fictional character from NBC's "The Office" as his running mate.

In the Republican senator's his 13th appearance on the show, McCain parried with Stewart on subjects including his Secret Service detail and his relationship with President Bush. The senator joked that he decided to announce his vice presidential choice on the show: Dwight Schrute, the assistant to the regional manager (or "assistant regional manager," if you ask Schrute) in the Scranton branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin paper company.

"You heard it here first: Dwight Schrute," McCain declared.

In response, Stewart offered a possible alternative for McCain's ticket, albeit not one from McCain's party. "If you chose Senator Hillary Clinton, you would win this election," the host said. "Don't you think that's a great idea?"

"That's one I've never contemplated," McCain replied, demurring when Stewart returned to the issue.

Stewart also pressed the presumptive Republican nominee on the McCain campaign's suggestion in a fundraising letter that the radical Islamist movement Hamas had endorsed Obama. McCain defended tying Obama to Hamas, saying, "The spokesperson said that."

"And you take Hamas at their word," Stewart observed dryly.

McCain passed on an opportunity to repudiate the president, and, for the most part, Stewart -- who had earlier skewered the Democrats' "long, flat, seemingly endless Bataan Death March to the White House" -- took it easy on McCain, joking about the code name the Secret Service must use for him and a fortune-cookie-like phrase from his stump speech.

-- Juliet Eilperin