Networks Dismiss Hillary Landslide

When Hillary Clinton wipes the floor with Barack Obama, the pundits have to give her her due, right?

I mean, when she just crushes him by a 2-to-1 margin, the talk would immediately turn to why the Democratic front-runner, the man anointed by the media as the party's nominee, can barely manage a third of the vote in West Virginia. Wouldn't it?

Here is how the cable networks reacted when they called the race at 7:30 last night:

On MSNBC, Tim Russert called it an "overwhelming victory" for Hillary. And then said that the 10 delegates she would net were more than offset by the 27 superdelegates Obama has picked up in the past week or so. As for West Virginia, he said, "the Obama campaign believes it's already been discounted, the way they do on Wall Street."

On CNN, John King said that "Barack Obama is the nominee even if he only gets 30 percent of the delegates the rest of the way."

On Fox, Shepard Smith asked his panel: "Anybody have a path to victory for Hillary Clinton, in a word?" The three guests simultaneously said no.

How did Clinton's big night immediately turn into a wake?

Far be it from me to suggest that the commentators didn't want to contradict their own declarations last week that Obama's got the thing wrapped up. Nor am I saying that the math isn't extremely daunting for Clinton.

But her West Virginia romp must mean something. If not, why are the cable nets bothering to cover it? Why not just relegate the news to the crawl?

(Actually, Fox didn't. It quickly went back to "The O'Reilly Factor" and other regular programming. Bill O'Reilly's second topic: "Is there a feud between Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama?")

Meanwhile, David Gregory was saying that perhaps Hillary would run with Obama because the Clintons would want to be part of the huge event that his election would represent.

One spin is that Obama blew off the state, making just one appearance Monday. But the Hillary team says he still outspent her in West Virginia.