EVENING UPDATE,  FEBRUARY 8,  2008

•   Oh, the scandal, the pain, the humiliation, the hypocrisy.  The mighty NBC News has suspended David Shuster, one of its main men, for an inappropriate comment about Chelsea Clinton.  Now, when it comes to inappropriateness, the Clintons are in a league of their own.  But, it was indeed wrong for Shuster to say what he did, as noted by a Clinton staffer:

In a conference call with reporters, Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson Friday excoriated MSNBC's David Shuster for suggesting the Clinton campaign had "pimped out" 27-year old Chelsea by having her place phone calls to Democratic Party superdelegates on her mother's behalf. Wolfson called the comment "beneath contempt" and disgusting.

Well, sure.  But the reaction is well-orchestrated to turn brave Chelsea and her long-suffering mom into victims. 

Watch your TVs carefully.  This will get more coverage than the Iranian nuclear program.  I just want to see Bill Clinton get on that tube and weep over the outrage. 

And I want to see the feministas, silent over the stoning to death of Iranian women, express their fury and give us a three-hour-long history of offensive imagery.

And I want to hear all the "ethics of journalism" professors weigh in on this.  They're kind of like "charities of the Mafia" scholars.  Let them examine the issues of free speech and inappropriate speech.

Then, will someone please tell me why it's okay for people to refer to the president as dumb, stupid, a dictator, a fascist, and, worst of all, a friend of Dick Cheney?  Do I hear silence?

•   And in the serious world, the Dems are getting all anguished over the split in their party.  Suddenly, maybe, they're realizing that when you assign everyone a group, and keep that going for a generation to build your party's base, those groups are going to come out swinging.  The key quote:

Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, speaking on the floor of the Senate, warned Friday that it would be a “train wreck” for the party if Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton cannot break their deadlock soon.

“Here is the coming train wreck,” Nelson said. “If one of our two leading candidates does not get a majority by the time that all the primaries and caucuses are over … then we go into a period during June, July and all the way to the end of August at the National Democratic Convention, a period of enormous uncertainty and turmoil.”

He said part of the turmoil would be the backroom deal-making of “superdelegates” — elected officials and other party leaders who come to the convention uncommitted to any candidate — and the fact that Florida’s and Michigan’s delegates will not be seated at the convention. Those two states were stripped of their delegates for holding primaries before Super Tuesday, in violation of party rules.

Clinton won the primaries in both states, and seating their delegations would benefit her.

Maybe it's time for the party elders to step in - McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis.  Together again.  What a scene!  Please wake me and give me a camera.

Franklin D. Roosevelt used to say, "I love it, I love it."  This he would have adored:  All these people who turned their backs on his legacy of a strong foreign policy are fighting over the crumbs.

•   Meanwhile, the Dem strategists are not idle, their creative minds looking forward to the fall, when, presumably, they'll have someone to run.  They're getting ready to attack John McCain, not an easy assignment:

The tough part for Democrats will be making any criticism stick. Republican rival Mitt Romney tried to no avail. The sharp, eleventh-hour assault launched by conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh and a cadre of high-profile conservatives also failed to derail his candidacy.

Doug Schoen, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton, says the Democrats must act quickly. "The trick is to get him on the flip-flops and not let him get back to the center where he can be a real force," he said.

The appeal of a flip-flop assault is that it could undermine McCain's reputation for taking tough stands and sticking with them no matter how the political wind blows.

Carter Eskew, a former adviser to Vice President Al Gore, puts it this way: "Go right after his strengths. Take the Straight Talk Express and push it off the rails."

The problem is, on the issue of flip-flopping, no one has flipped and flopped more than Ms. Hillary.  Just show her kissing the bride of the late Yasir Arafat, then pledging her eternal love for Israel when she ran for the Senate from New York.  That should do it.

On Obama, the tactic might be different.  He doesn't flip.  He hasn't flopped.  Trouble is, he doesn't vote.  How can you accuse a man of contradicting himself when there's nothing to contradict?  He's ducked issues more often than hunters have ducked Dick Cheney.  McCain can turn any charge of flip-flopping right around, and note that Obama's record is thinner than a fanatic at Weight Watchers. 

Oh, the fun is coming.

•   They finally notice.  Someone has realized that the much-quoted Zogby poll, which predicted Obama and Romney triumphs in California on Tuesday, had the same level as accuracy as our recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran.  The L.A. Times now says:

In a news release, Zogby International explained: "It appears that we underestimated Hispanic turnout and overestimated the importance of younger Hispanic voters" (i.e. far more Latinos, especially older ones, cast ballots than anticipated, and those voters went heavily for Clinton). Also, African American turnout was "overestimated."

Yeah, sounds right to me.  The Zogby people are still examining the GOP vote.  Both Clinton and McCain took the state by wide margins.

Zogby does point out that he got other primaries right.  As the doctor said to the family of the departed loved one, "Most of my patients are alive."

As the wise pundits say, there's only one poll that counts, and it's the one they take on election day.

•   You know, you just can't find a good love story anymore.  Wait.  We just found one.  Yes, we had to travel to Australia, but it touches the heart.  It seems true love was so powerful that, in exchange for a promise of marriage, a smitten young woman was willing to do, well, to do stuff, for her guy: 

A WOMAN agreed to plant a bomb on a busy Sydney street in exchange for a promise of marriage from her prisoner boyfriend, a court has heard.

Jill Allison Courtney and Hassan Kalache are on trial in the NSW Supreme Court, charged with conspiring to bomb a public place and kill or maim passers-by.

Oh, come on.  What's a little mayhem compared to the bond of marriage?  To family values?  To intercultural understanding?

I wish these Australian cops wouldn't be such fuddy-duddies, and try to understand the need for love in today's cold, computer-driven world.

•   And the fallout continues over the Archibishop of Canterbury's comment that Sharia law might have to be partly adopted in the UK.  Now the Fatherland weighs in:

As the Archbishop of Canterbury comes under fire for suggesting parts of Shariah law be applied in the UK, the head of Germany's Protestant Church told Deutsche Welle a country needs a single legal system for everyone.

Speaking to journalists at the Deutsche Welle in Bonn, Wolfgang Huber, head of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany, slammed the proposal by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams to introduce parts of Islamic Shariah law for Muslims in Britain. Williams also said introduction of some aspects of Islamic or Shariah law was "unavoidable" in Britain to promote social cohesion.

"Hoping to achieve integration through a dual legal system is a mistaken idea," Huber told Deutsche Welle in an exclusive interview. "You have to ask the question as to what extent cultural characteristics have a legitimate place in a legal system. But you have to push for one country to have one system." 

Yeah, true.  On the other hand, maybe we'd better keep an eye on these "one-system" guys, as in "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!"

Okay, okay, it was a long time ago.  But it fit.

•   Meanwhile, back at the abbey, the archbishop is shocked, shocked, by the response to his comments:

The Archbishop of Canterbury is said to be overwhelmed by the "hostility of the response" after his call for parts of Sharia law to be recognised in the UK.

Friends of Dr Rowan Williams say he is in a state of shock and dismayed by the criticism from his own Church.

All the main political parties, secular groups and some senior Muslims have expressed dismay at his comments.

Maybe the Bish should get out and around a bit.  Visit a pub.  Rub shoulders with the Brits in Iraq.  Have a gin and tonic with some Saudi women, and watch them get tossed in jail.

Or maybe he should just whip out a copy of his New Testament on a trip through Mecca.  He'd no doubt enjoy what happens next.

And we'll be back tomorrow.

Posted on February 8, 2008.