Below The Beltway

For today’s installment the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank takes us inside the Clinton campaign:

The Christian Science Monitor had assembled the éminences grises of the Washington press corps — among them David Broder of The Post, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times and columnist Mark Shields — for what turned out to be a fascinating tour of an alternate universe.

First came Harold Ickes, who gave a presentation about Hillary Rodham Clinton’s prospects that severed all ties with reality. “We’re on the way to locking this nomination down,” he said of a candidate who appears, if anything, headed in the other direction.

But before the breakfast crowd had a chance to digest that, they were served another, stranger course by Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer. Asked about an accusation on the Drudge Report that Clinton staffers had circulated a photo of Barack Obama wearing Somali tribal dress, Singer let ‘er rip.

“I find it interesting that in a room of such esteemed journalists that Mr. Drudge has become your respected assignment editor,” he lectured. “I find it to be a reflection of one of the problems that’s gone on with the overall coverage of this campaign.” He went on to chide the journalists for their “woefully inadequate” coverage of Obama, “a point that has been certainly backed up by the ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit that opened the show this past Saturday evening, which I would refer you all to.”

The brief moment explained everything about the bitter relations between Clinton’s campaign and the media: Singer taunting the likes of Broder, who began covering presidential politics two decades before Singer was born, with a comedy sketch that showed debate moderators fawning over Obama.

But wait, there’s more:

When Amy Chozick of the Wall Street Journal asked about how combative Clinton would be in tonight’s debate with Obama, Singer informed her that it was an “absurd” question. “I don’t think . . . any of our senior people have the ESP skills that you all ascribe to us,” he said.

When Time’s Jay Newton-Small inquired about the Obama photo on Drudge, Singer used the occasion to complain about the press’s failure to examine Obama’s ties to violent radicals who were part of the Weathermen of the 1960s. “As far as I can tell, there was absolutely no follow-up on the part of the Obama traveling press corps,” he said.

Even Broder, asking about why Clinton had abandoned the North American Free Trade Agreement, was informed by Singer that “elections are about the future.”

Cook, the host, got similar treatment when he asked why Clinton hasn’t released her tax returns. “When she’s the general-election nominee, she’ll release the tax returns,” Singer said.

These people are going down, and they know it.

And there’s more from Marc Ambinder:

The Clinton campaign has been accused of moving the goal posts every time they fail to reach a previously promised threshold, but the goal posts, right now, are at the back of the stadium. They can’t be moved any further back without bringing the whole thing down. It’s unlikely that the news media, more pro-Obama than anti-Hillary, would give any credence to another attempt to push the contest into April. And, come to think it, there’s no energy left on the Clinton campaign to do, either.

Advisers figure that a loss in Texas is as likely as a win in Ohio; a large number of staffers appear to be willing to quit en masse next Wednesday if there’s a split decision and Clinton gives notice that she intends to fight for another month.

And what of Clinton herself? To borrow my favorite Christian heresy metaphor, many in the political world are Manicheans when it comes to her motives. Either she is entirely evil and devious or she is totally pure and misunderstand. Her actions to date suggest that she is more aware of her surroundings that people give her credit for. She does not seem to want to hurt the party; she does not want to jeopardize Obama in November — yes, yes, I know, 2012 and all that, but she also knows that the truth is, her political career would not be over if she were to concede the nomination gracefully, only that part of it that has depended, for better or worse, on her husband.

It’s going to be a very interesting week.

Previous Posts

Hillary Clinton Death Watch
Hillary Clinton Death Watch, Afternoon Update
Hillary Clinton Death Watch Saturday Update
Hillary Clinton Death Watch Sunday Update
Hillary Clinton Death Watch Monday Update