Taking the High Road?

An example: Eric Kotecki Vest of BlogHer.com "asked Mr. McCain whether the vision he laid out yesterday of U.S. troops succeeding in Iraq by 2013 didn't amount to the sort of timetable he has criticized when Democrats propose a specific date for withdrawal. Mr. McCain shot right back: 'Either you didn't read or didn't understand my speech. One of the two.'

"Ms. Vest said she 'read it and understood it just fine, and I don't understand how 2013 isn't a date.' "

Obama is learning to play the game, says Roger Simon, if the game is providing nice pictures for the cameras. He begins with Obama talking to Brian Williams about his awful bowling outing and how "the American people are smarter than that":

" 'Suddenly, this becomes some big sort of signifier of whether or not I'm in tune with blue-collar culture . . . Sometimes I wear a tie, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I wear a flag pin, sometimes I don't. You know, sometimes I like a burger and a beer. Sometimes a glass of wine and a steak is good. But this doesn't have much to do with how I'm gonna lead the country.'

"And you know what? Obama is absolutely, positively right. And you know what? It doesn't really matter that he is right. The process is the process, the game is the game. And you can spend your time exposing how flawed the game is, or you can spend your time winning it.

"In the past few weeks, it has become clear to me that Obama intends to win it. In West Virginia, he shot some pool at a billiards hall, and when he sank a ball on the break and then pocketed two more, he said, 'That's a sign of a misspent youth.' "

That was before he got into Harvard Law?

Dick Polman isn't wowed by the John Edwards endorsement, but "I would argue that the bigger symbolic blow to [Hillary] Clinton was delivered by NARAL Pro-Choice America. It too endorsed Obama, thereby sending the message that even a prominent feminist abortion-rights organization, with strong sisterhood ties to Clinton, believes that her quest is futile. This endorsement is stark evidence that part of her base is beginning to erode. This endorsement is also the first major signal to liberal women that defeating John McCain (and preserving Roe v. Wade) should take precedence."

A touching story meets the bureaucracy:

"At the conclusion of her victory speech in Charleston, W.Va., on Tuesday night," Slate reports, "Hillary Clinton told the story of a supporter named Florence Steen, who passed away last Sunday. The 88-year-old South Dakotan had just voted for Clinton by absentee ballot, ahead of the state's June 3 primary. It's a touching story, but will her vote still count?

"No. As dictated by a 2001 state law, the South Dakota Department of Health is responsible for furnishing the county auditors with a list of registered voters who have died each month. This information is used to update the state's electronic voter-registration file, which was created by a different 2001 law. Absentee ballots are collected by county auditors and remain sealed until the election, so if an absentee voter dies prior to the election, then her ballot is never opened."

I bet the votes count in Chicago.