Ahhhh. So this is why the presidential candidates aren’t exactly pleased with news networks sending “embeds” – campaign reporters armed with video cameras and a broadband link back to HQ – to cover their every move: Because they post videos of Hillary Clinton drinking and dancing to Enrique Iglesias’ “Just Want to Be With You.”

CONTINUED »

What is it about this election that has everyone talking about assassination? I don't know about you, but I haven't the faintest idea of what it could be. But for whatever reason, people keep on bringing it up! Good ol' Mike Huckabee made a joke about gun-toting NRA members shooting down Barack Obama. He later apologized.

Friday, Hillary Clinton referenced the June 1968 assassination of Bobby Kennedy as a reason why she should stay in the race. "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June," she told the editorial board of South Dakota's Sioux Falls Argus-Leader. "We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it." Some people thought she was suggesting that she needs to stay in the race just in case somebody gets assassinated before it's over.

CONTINUED »

Missy Elliott was kind enough to provide BlackBook recently with a list of things she hates, including taking her shoes off at the airport (don't we all, girl) and "minute men" (just like the song). Right. It's an interesting regular feature, if only because stars are a lot quicker to talk about the things they love and than the things they hate. What might some of our top news-makers say if they were asked?

CONTINUED »

Perhaps a better question to ask is, will she? I think we all know the answer to that.

It's probably safe to say that the majority of Hillary Clinton voters are not voting for her just because they don't want to vote for a black guy. Now that that disclaimer is out of the way, it's probably also safe to say that there were obviously a few more of those "I'll never vote for a black or a Muslim" voters in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana and Kentucky. I mean, just check out the exit polls! In Kentucky, 21 percent of Democratic voters said that race was a factor in deciding their vote. Nine out of ten of those people ended up voting for Hillary Clinton. On CNN last night, analysts said that it might behoove Hillary Clinton to say something like, "If you're only voting for me because you don't want to vote for a black man, then I don't want your vote." John Edwards did it not too long ago.

They seemed at least slightly optimistic that she would, at some point in the near future, do exactly this. But where does that optimism come from? She's been clinging to the racist vote and using it (in coded language) as a selling point to superdelegates. It's the one demographic that Barack Obama doesn't have a chance of hell in wooing by November, and she's wearing their support of her like a badge of honor. Some honor. If she didn't play up this race issue post-Pennsylvania and Indiana, then I doubt people would be calling upon her to make any grand proclamations. How must it feel to, in the course of one election, completely destroy a well-respected civil rights record and a relationship with a vast portion of an entire race of Americans? After this is all over, someone should ask.

CONTINUED »

Good news for Hillary Clinton:

• She crushed Barack Obama in Kentucky, West Virginny-style, with 65 percent of the vote to Obama's 35 percent of the vote. She won in every area in the state except for Louisville and Lexington.

• Only 1/3 of Hillary's voters said they would be willing to vote for Obama in the primary. The nay-sayers said he "doesn't share their values and is untrustworthy." Gotcha. No Democratic president has won without the state of Kentucky since JFK beat Nixon. This might not be as much good news for Hillary Clinton as it is bad news for the Democratic party.

Bad news for Hillary Clinton:

• She lost Oregon 42 to 58.

• Obama pulled even with her in Oregon with white women and voters without college educations.

• Obama might have a hard road in making states like Kentucky and West Virginia blue, but he could possibly change the political landscape in traditional red states like Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, and even Mississippi and South Carolina (or so I've read) — something she doesn't have a chance of doing.

• Obama now needs about 70 delegates to seal the nomination. She needs about 250.

Wherein you, the readers, talk amongst yourselves.

The fabled Dream Ticket: A dream or a nightmare?

The senseless blubbering, the misplaced anger, the confusion, the over- and under-reliance on polling data, the twin evils of tiptoeing around racial topics and treating them with no care or nuance or sense of history, all of the things present in this clip between Pat Buchanan and Chris Matthews represent everything that's been horribly wrong about the cable news coverage of Hillary Clinton v. Barack Obama. The irony is clear — two well-off, educated, elite, white men, from their vantage points in air-conditioned, big-city studios, are arguing passionately about the motivations of poor, uneducated whites in West Virginia and blacks in Philadelphia.

CONTINUED »

Is Tyra Banks the answer to the DNC's prayers?

Chris Matthews, never a big fan of the HRC, shudders at the thought that she would actually deign to mention "white blue collar" voters and play the ugly race card, then proceeds to accuse Clinton of being the "Al Sharpton of white people." Cable news hosts are losing their minds this election season. I'm not sure who would be more offended by this characterization, HRC or Rev. Al. Probably Rev. Al.

CONTINUED »

• All of the many women currently in romantic relationships with Diddy should be ashamed of themselves. [NB]

• Kim Kardashian and her siblings continue to deny stealing $120,000 from Brandy and Ray J's mom. [People]

• How can we interpret the U.S. media's lack of hesitation in showing the dead bodies of non-Americans (or Katrina victims)? [Racialious]

• if I liked Hillary Clinton even a fraction of the amount that I used to, I would feel sort of bad about the way all of this has gone down for her. [JJP]

• Al Reynolds criticizes the media and says he married Star Jones for love. [SR]

Victory is Hillary Clinton's today after what can only be described as a "thorough trouncing" of Obama in West Virginia yesterday. Clinton said during her victory speech that she was "more determined than ever," even though everyone, including the numerous pundits who have concluded that the math makes this race as good as over, knew she was going to win by a wide margin. To them, the victory shouldn't mean much of anything in the long run. To her, it means everything. Or at least that's what she's saying. For his part, Obama conceded the win before West Virginians even started voting. Donna Brazile said that Hillary Clinton's "hard-working Americans" argument might have changed some minds, "but more minds have been changed right now in favor of Sen. Obama." [CNN]

LISTEN UP, HILLARY-OR-NOTHING DEMOCRATS Here's a taste of what's at stake: "The next President of the United States will have an enormous opportunity to shape the U.S. Supreme Court for decades. That’s because several members of the court are getting up there in years. John McCain says he would pick Justices along the lines of John Roberts and Samuel Alito, two conservatives nominated by President Bush. Barack Obama told me last week that he would favor nominees along the lines of Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, two liberals nominated by former President Bill Clinton. Clearly, the two presidential frontrunners have a major disagreement on this critically important issue, and no doubt it would be a major consideration for voters in the fall." [CNN]

JUST SUPER Barack Obama told a group of undeclared superdelegates from Florida yesterday that he was committed to seating the state's delegates at the national convention, although they have been stripped of their relevance by the DNC after the state violated the party's rules. It's the first time Obama has made a clear promise to do this. In a letter to Obama yesterday, Hillary Clinton wrote, "It is not enough to simply seat their representatives at the convention in Denver. The people of these great states, like the people who have voted and are to vote in other states, must have a voice in selecting our party's nominee."

Hillary Clinton's going hard at Barack Obama this week after her very disappointing Tuesday. She's pointing to her success with white working class voters as an indicator that she is in a better position to win the presidency.

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

"There's a pattern emerging here," she said…

CONTINUED »