(ed.note: If you missed it, see the speech here.)

From TPM Reader KW ...

For those who found Hillary's concession speech to be too much about her I would only say it was about those of us who supported her candidacy. Her speech was inspiring and gracious and spoke to the millions of Democrats, Republicans and Indpendents who worked for her campaign and voted for her. If there are those Democrats who still feel it is necessary to denigrate Senator Clinton and her run for the Presidency, I would ask them to think about the change they advocate and the no more politics as usual. The only way to say no to the Washington politics of the past 20 years is to stop hating and start moving forward. Senator Clinton delivered a message of hope and action that deserves praise rather than condemnation. As a woman of what the media pundits have chosen to call "a certain age", I am decidely saddened by her withdrawal, but I also understand that she has lost the contest for the nomination. That loss, however, does not give anyone who supports the candidacy of Senator Obama the right to laugh or express derision about Senator Clinton or her supporters. That loss does not give anyone the right to think any less of her and what she stands for as a Democrat, as a woman, and as a viable candidate for President of the United States. I fear that view will not be one shared by many supporters of Senator Obama. I have been disheartened by the level of incivility expressed by both sides during this race and would hope that the winning side will not now gloat and the losing pout. If there is to truly be change in this country, we do not have room or time for such behavior. A John McCain presidency would certainly be a disaster for the United States and for the rest of the world; we cannot hope to keep him from winning next November by discounting the views and votes of 18 million Americans.

From TPM Reader BC ...

I disagree with David's speculation that those of us who are not Clinton fans would think it was too much about her. I live in NY and voted against her in her last Senate primary and this year's Presidential primary.

I thought it was a fantastic speech. In fact, if her actions in the Senate had matched the rhetoric of that speech, she would be the consensus nominee going away. She dug herself a pretty deep hole with her actions over the past month capped off by her non-concession earlier in the week. Excused the mixed metaphor, but that speech cleared the slate as much as a speech possibly could have. Her support of Obama sounded utterly sincere and whole hearted.

Now, let's see if the actions live up to the words ...

From TPM Reader JS ...

She did so much "just right" and could have won it had she not had the rough treatment from the media. I sensed that you found it difficult to pay her a compliment even now.

As one of those loyal supporters who are feeling let down by the process, let me say that I will likely come around to voting for Obama-absolutely never for McCain.

You like to put it all on her. Obama is the victor, now let's see what he does. The burden is on him as it should be. We knew she would deliver. Listen to her speech and focus on her words about taking it all and going on with grace. She always has and will continue to do so. Yes, I'm one of the women who looks to her for strength and example. She picks herself up and goes on and you all keep delivering the vicious, over the top negatives and there she is back in view with grace.

She did it for us and will continue to be our spokeswoman. She has more than earned it. We know she gets it and has done so much for women and children around the world.

Now let's see if Obama can deliver. He has much to do and undo. Yes, his unfortunate comments "Hillary, you are likeable enough" spoke volumes. He was some work to do.

Thanks for inviting comments.

TPM Reader EM ...

I thought Hillary's speech was a little schizophrenic, maybe like her campaign. It obviously had cobbled together sections, and I thought it was clear that her heart was most in the parts about her and her supporters. This came across in several ways:

1) She continued with that insistent use of the word I rather than a more inclusive our or this when talking about the campaign. There was also that odd, ambiguous little moment near the beginning of the speech when she said something about having wanted to regain the White House.

2) Technically, Obama has a name with a built-in charge. In poetic terms, it's a strong iamb for his first name, strong amphibrach for the last. It's a name that's all but designed for creating a rhetorical point. Hillary made it uneventful and conversational, quiet, a little sing-songy, as if it were all she could do even to say it.

3) She kept that dazzling smile she's shown off in this campaign entirely away from the endorsement parts.

4) While she used some of Obama's campaign language effectively, she didn't come up with anything soaring about what it means to her that there's an African-American nominee for president; she didn't really say that there'd been two mirroring paths to the nomination, both about inclusion and equality of opportunity, and that now those paths need to join as one single road to the White House.

All that said, as a concession speech and a rallying of the troups, I think it was all that the Obama camp could have wanted given how recently the campaign ended, and how deeply invested Hillary was in her desire to be president. I felt it was Hillary at her best, but I feel that best, in spite of all her gifts, lacks a certain empathetic core and magnanimity of spirit, which is probably why she could make the bruising mistakes in her campaign that probably cost her the nomination.

TPM Reader MS ...

For all the talk of whether Clinton's concession speech was sufficient to bring her most ardent supporters into the Obama fold, I think the speech accomplished something else, at least for me, a strong Obama supporter: it softened my opinion of Clinton at a time when I had become absolutely fed up with her escalating nonsense over the last few weeks. While I still don't think an Obama/Clinton ticket is ideal for purely political reasons (there are better possibilities), I now would not be as opposed to such a ticket on a purely visceral, personal level. I couldn't have said that yesterday. If one of Clinton's goals today was to begin repairing the division between herself and those voters who didn't support her, I believe she succeeded.

TPM Reader DG ...

Senator Hillary Clinton made me so very proud to be a woman and a Democrat today. As an Obama supporter, I was very concerned. Turns out I needn't have been concerned. Hillary proved herself to be a classy, loyal, smart woman, and her speech was an example of how great this country can be!!!!

TPM Reader NG ...

Hillary's concession and endorsement speech was near perfect. She drew her audience gently up to the moment when she brought up Obama, endorsed him and offered words that I briefly thought might well have come from him (as you pointed out), and then just as gently led her folks out the open door with her. Masterful.

At the same time, to those who think this was a great indication that she should be VP, I have this thought: Speaking the way she has today I believe she can be much MORE effective a surrogate in the general specifically if she is NOT on the ballot (with an obvious personal stake in the outcome).

There are plenty of places for her to go, plenty of people for her to persuade, and she should not be hampered by being on the ticket.

TPM Reader MM ...

DK asked for a "thought," so here's mine. After her much criticized speech earlier this week, I dug through my record collection to find my vinyl copy of Ted Kennedy's 'concession' speeech from the 1980 Democratic Convention. (Yep--they released one and I bought it 27+ yrs ago). It was, from beginning to end Ted Kennedy's acceptance speech. It contained one sentence, in the final paragraph, acknowledging Carter's nomination. (I congratulate President Carter on his victory). Other than that, he essentially claimed the nomination that the voters had given to Carter months before. Standing at the podium of the Convention itself, Kennedy let the nation know he believed he deserved the nomination.

That speech reminded me all over again of the legitimacy of the charge that Kennedy tore the party apart over his failed ambition.

Compared to that speech, and even in its own right, Hillary's speech was a model of grace and reconciliation. Once the speech is published, it will be easy to nibble away at the sentences where she held on to this or that difference with Sen Obama. But those who expected Hillary to give Obama a pinched and begrudging support need to admit that they were very wrong. Who gives a damn if it took her a couple of extra days to do it?

TPM Reader VM ...

I have to agree with David and Greg that Hillary Clinton's concession was one of the best political speeches ever given.

I'm from Illinois, so I was an early and enthusiastic Obama supporter. Throughout the campaign, I kept trying hard to take the high road, insisting that I would support Hillary if she were the nominee. At times in this highly competitive campaign, it was hard. Very hard.

As I listened to Hillary's speech, the thought that kept running through my mind was how gracious and she was. I'd like to think that if my candidate were in her shoes, he would be equally magnimous. Most importantly, I'd like to think that I would accept the words of my candidate in the spirit intended.

The speech would ring hollow if she did not refer to the historic nature of her candidacy, and to its successes. As an Obama supporter, I'm fine with her taking a victory lap; she deserves it.

I hope that other Obama supporters acknowledge our friends who supported Clinton. Clinton ran a great campaign, and it was historic. Our friends should be congratulated.

And as for the times that I may have been negative towards Clinton during this primary -- well, that's what happens during an extremely competitive campaign. I'm glad that my candidate won, but I'm also glad that Hillary is still around. Had Obama lost, I would certainly expect him to remain visible and active in national politics. For the same reasons, I hope Hillary remains in the spotlight.

It's our most popular episode of TPMtv since we started the show in April 2007. And I've probably watched it myself maybe 30 times. John McCain gives a speech that's so awful it turns the Fox News commentators into honest men for one evening ...

TPM Reader CG does some Joe-ology ...

Lieberman is in a very delicate political position. His value to Republicans, and his popularity with them, is that he is a Democrat who criticizes Democrats mercilessly. If he were to become a Republican he would quickly become just another RINO (Republican in Name Only) Senator from New England. His policy positions are, except for his intense support of any military action in the middle east, pretty middle of the road for New England and thus are well to the left of the Republican party. He would be just another Jim Jeffords or Lincoln Chaffee - and they both felt very uncomfortable in the Bush era Republican Party. And this is why he has continued to caucus with the Democrats.

But this has meant that Joe has had to walk a tightrope - he criticizes the Democrats enough to keep his popularity up with the Republicans, but doesn't go so far as to have the Democrats dump him from the caucus. He's played the thin 51-49 majority for all it is worth.

His recent actions, however, may indicate that Joe realizes he can't walk this tightrope forever. His popularity in CT is down near Bush territory, and with the Democrats likely to have a larger majority in the Senate come November, his leverage will be gone. My guess is that he realizes this is his last term in the Senate, and his last year with any leverage, so he's placing an all-or-nothing bet on a McCain victory. Joe is angling for either the VP slot or a high position in the McCain cabinet.

As everybody's seen, Sen. Joe Lieberman's antics have escalated pretty dramatically over the last few weeks and appear set to keep escalating over the course of what promises to be a vicious election season. But what happens after November?

At the moment, because of the Democrats' razor thin margin in the senate, Lieberman has it within his power to turn the senate upside down. If Lieberman switched to the Republican caucus, it wouldn't automatically switch the leadership. The parliamentary ins and outs are complicated. But basically the current organization lasts for the whole Congress unless they decide to reorganize. And since the Dems control the body the Dems would have to agree to do that, which seems unlikely. But Republicans would start pushing for it at every turn. And they'd have the precedent of 2001, which is not an exact parallel but close enough.

In any case, after November.

Five months is a long time in politics. But there's a very strong consensus that Democrats will pick up seats in the senate -- the question is how many. But any pick up would take away almost all of Lieberman's remaining leverage, though he might have some thin remaining leverage on cloture. But whatever. Then, if Obama beats McCain, there's also a Democratic president who's really not favorably inclined toward Joe.

So if you're getting more and more pissed at Lieberman's antics, just a wait a few months.

How much longer is former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX) going to be John McCain's top economics advisor? He's already brought his ties to the mortgage crisis into McCain's campaign. But this latest development could prove considerably more damaging.

Gramm is Vice Chairman of UBS Securities, the investment banking division of the Swiss uber-bank UBS. And UBS private banking arm is now the target of a major and wide-ranging criminal investigation into the bank's efforts to help "high net worth individuals" evade hundreds of millions of dollars of US taxes. As the Times puts it, "The case could turn into an embarrassment for Marcel Rohner, the chief executive of UBS and the former head of its private bank, as well as for Phil Gramm, the former Republican senator from Texas who is now the vice chairman of UBS Securities, the Swiss bank's investment banking arm."

Political damage always depends heavily on whether the problems play to type. In this case, Gramm -- renowned for his embrace of trickle-down economics and tax cutting for the wealthiest Americans -- I think you could say that finding ways to help wealthy Americans finding illegal tax dodges fits the bill.

The key is just how closely tied into UBS Gramm's work got him. He's Vice Chairman of the investment bank part of UBS. And he also separately lobbied for UBS on the mortgage crisis front, though I think he no longer does. Our impression is that the Vice Chairman gig was not some fancy title just doled out to a political heavyweight -- that he was really pretty deeply involved in the company's affairs, though we're still looking into that. Separately, there's the question of the overlap between the company's two divisions -- private banking and investment banking. We're continuing to look into it. Would appreciate insights from folks in the industry.

Noted Israeli charlatan Benjamin Netanyahu is considering hiring Karl Rove to plan strategy for his bid for a second stint as Prime Minister of Israel.

Some people seem to think torture and violations of the Geneva Conventions are a big deal. But not Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA). Apparently, it's just the sort of stuff they did at frat parties back when he was in college. Putting panties on guys' heads seems to be a particular favorite with him. We take a look in today's episode of TPMtv ...

High-res version at Veracifier.com.

To demonstrate strong leadership amidst campaign turmoil, John McCain has forced all senior members of his campaign team to adopt his creepily awkward speaking style and Web -3.4 mentality ...

(No foolin': this is a real McCain campaign video.)

After McCain's Tuesday night prebuttal speech trainwreck I was afraid he might keep going with no discernible message and just a lot of imagery and themes stressing age, being part of yesterday and generally being completely out of touch. But boy was I wrong. Here's a screen capture of the front page of McCain's website as of 3:55 PM this afternoon with the four tabs across the top apparently signaling McCain's top four agenda items ...

Late Update: Many of you have noted, as the Hotline Blog shows here, that McCain's new logo appears to be literally ripped off from Obama's logo -- much as his new slogan is. I think this is actually part of McCain's new plan to demonstrate leadership and demonize Obama by appropriating all his campaign iconography and slogans.

It's hard when politicians stonewall reporters. So I need to ask for your help.

But first a little background.

Former Rep. Bob Schaffer (R) is running for senate in Colorado. Schaffer left the House in 2003 and tried to run for Senate in 2004 but lost in the Republican primary. But soon after he left the House he joined the board of directors of an outfit called the National Alternative Fuels Foundation, an outfit run by a guy named Bill Orr and put together with the help of a Colorado political operative named Scott Shires, who's also been Schaffer's political handler in Colorado.

Nothing too out of the ordinary there except that it turned out that the NAFF was actually a scam funded with a $3.6 million congressional earmark. Last week, a federal court in Colorado convicted Orr of 22 counts all tied to basically using bogus science to bilk the US government out of $2 million bucks disbursed under that earmark. Shires had already pled guilty to charges tied to his role in the operation -- he was treasurer -- and is awaiting sentencing next month.

Now, it's bad enough that Schaffer was serving on the board of the NAFF while it was in the process of scamming the federal government. But the fat earmark that funded the whole scheme suggests another question. Was it Schaffer that got the earmark that funded Orr's phony-baloney operation?

It's possible for an earmark like that to get funded without any member of Congress championing them. But it doesn't happen often. In most cases, someone has to push for it. Given Schaffer's close connection to Shires and the fact that he joined the board of directors right after leaving Congress, he's a logical suspect. But there's no direct proof.

So TPMmuckraker reporter Andrew Tilghman put together the list of every member of the Colorado congressional delegation circa 2000 and just started putting in calls. It took a little work. When Tilghman finally tracked down retired Rep. Joel Hefley at his home in Oklahoma, he had to leave a message for a callback with Hefley's wife because Hefley was out in the barn. But of the eight members of the delegation, we managed to put the question to seven of them. And while they each phrased it a bit differently, each said they were either sure they had nothing to do with it or had no recollection of having anything to do with it (it was eight years ago). Except one. Bob Schaffer. The guy will not take our calls. He's not willing to deny a role with the earmark.

So what do we do? The Colorado press won't touch it. But we really want to know if Schaffer was more deeply involved in this than he's letting on. We have no proof he was responsible for the earmark, just circumstantial evidence that suggests his involvement. It's also possible that someone outside of the Colorado delegation made this happen. But I don't think that's likely. And I'm pretty sure someone out there knows what happened. So if you do, we want to hear from you. And if you're not that person, if you can just get Schaffer to answer the question, that would do nice too. We're just looking for the mystery earmarker.

Jake Tapper provides some more details of that talking-to Obama gave Joe Lieberman yesterday on the senate floor.

Email out tonight from Sen. Clinton ...

Dear XXX,

I wanted you to be one of the first to know: on Saturday, I will hold an event in Washington D.C. to thank everyone who has supported my campaign. Over the course of the last 16 months, I have been privileged and touched to witness the incredible dedication and sacrifice of so many people working for our campaign. Every minute you put into helping us win, every dollar you gave to keep up the fight meant more to me than I can ever possibly tell you.

On Saturday, I will extend my congratulations to Senator Obama and my support for his candidacy. This has been a long and hard-fought campaign, but as I have always said, my differences with Senator Obama are small compared to the differences we have with Senator McCain and the Republicans.

I have said throughout the campaign that I would strongly support Senator Obama if he were the Democratic Party's nominee, and I intend to deliver on that promise.

When I decided to run for president, I knew exactly why I was getting into this race: to work hard every day for the millions of Americans who need a voice in the White House.

I made you -- and everyone who supported me -- a promise: to stand up for our shared values and to never back down. I'm going to keep that promise today, tomorrow, and for the rest of my life.

I will be speaking on Saturday about how together we can rally the party behind Senator Obama. The stakes are too high and the task before us too important to do otherwise.

I know as I continue my lifelong work for a stronger America and a better world, I will turn to you for the support, the strength, and the commitment that you have shown me in the past 16 months. And I will always keep faith with the issues and causes that are important to you.

In the past few days, you have shown that support once again with hundreds of thousands of messages to the campaign, and again, I am touched by your thoughtfulness and kindness.

I can never possibly express my gratitude, so let me say simply, thank you.

Sincerely,

Hillary Rodham Clinton

From The Hill ...

Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) are quietly working together on a good-government bill despite their campaign-trail battle over who is tougher against Washington's special interests.

McCain's Senate office contacted Obama's office Monday night asking to sign on to a bill opening federal government contracts to public scrutiny, according to three knowledgeable sources.

Before the call, Obama had been working on the measure primarily with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), an ardent proponent of eliminating wasteful government spending and an early supporter and longtime Senate ally of McCain's.

After learning that Obama and Coburn were introducing the bill without his backing, McCain's staffers immediately contacted Coburn to express concern and a desire to be named as an original co-sponsor of the update. They then called Obama's office.

Obama staffers were happy to comply with McCain's request to sign on, an Obama adviser said, because they knew support from the two presumptive nominees could propel the legislation to passage in the final months of a packed legislative schedule.

McCain's Senate office and campaign did not return calls for comment on the matter. Coburn, however, acknowledged that the request had occurred and blamed himself for not being more aggressive in contacting McCain about becoming an original co-sponsor when the bill was introduced.

Read the rest here.

If you were awful enough to delight in John McCain's prebuttal speech trainwreck last night, feast your eyes on the Fox News commentators trying to decide if it was just bad or downright terrible ...

(Speaking personally, this episode is one you simply do not want to miss.)

High-res version at Veracifier.com.

From Roll Call ...

Furthermore, during a Senate vote Wednesday, Obama dragged Lieberman by the hand to a far corner of the Senate chamber and engaged in what appeared to reporters in the gallery as an intense, three-minute conversation.

While it was unclear what the two were discussing, the body language suggested that Obama was trying to convince Lieberman of something and his stance appeared slightly intimidating.

Using forceful, but not angry, hand gestures, Obama literally backed up Lieberman against the wall, leaned in very close at times, and appeared to be trying to dominate the conversation, as the two talked over each other in a few instances.

Still, Obama and Lieberman seemed to be trying to keep the back-and-forth congenial as they both patted each other on the back during and after the exchange.

Afterwards, Obama smiled and pointed up at reporters peering over the edge of the press gallery for a better glimpse of their interaction.

Obama loyalists were quick to express their frustration with Lieberman's decision and warned that if he continues to take a lead role in attacking Obama it could complicate his professional relationship with the Caucus.

From Minnpost.com ...

The crowd kept pouring into the Xcel Energy Center. All ages. All races. All backgrounds. Young Somalis chanting "O-bama!" And older, white women, bedecked in sparkling red, white and blue and holding up a sign, "Women for Obama!''

But most noticeable was the arrival of such people as Buck Humphrey, who once had headed Hillary Rodham Clinton's Minnesota campaign. And Jackie Stevenson, a DFL activist, a feminist and a Clinton-supporting superdelegate, who at the last minute had changed her mind about attending the event. And St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, who was a Clinton supporter until sometime Monday. And Rick Stafford, another Clinton superdelegate.

TPM Reader CN ...

Let's be clear about what Hillary is doing here. By signaling that she'll take the VP slot if offered -- and insinuating that a joint ticket is necessary to heal the party(!) -- she is foregoing the normal diplomatic niceties in order to screw Obama. It sticks him with the choice between looking like the bad guy (for not offering) and doing something he really doesn't want to do (putting her on the ticket). Either way, he loses. And either way, she wins: she gets on the ticket or else she engenders a lot of bitterness in her supporters, hurting Obama's chances in November (and thereby increasing her chances for a 2012 run).

I don't agree that it's necessarily the intention; but it is the effect. Obama absolutely cannot give in to pressure to give Clinton the VP slot. If he decides she helps him, that it makes sense for the campaign and his potential presidency, great. It might be a unstoppable combination. But he cannot and I suspect that he will not allow himself to be muscled.

The McCain people are telling the AP they had McCain speak before a tiny audience "by design."

From the AP ...

In a symbolic move, Obama spoke in the same hall where McCain will accept the Republican nomination at his party's convention in September. Campaign officials, citing the local fire marshal, put the crowd at 17,000 inside the eXcel Energy Center, plus another 15,000 outside.

McCain addressed a smaller crowd by design, an estimated 600 in his audience and another 600 outside.

I'm not sure who sounds sillier, the McCain camp for saying that or the AP for buying it.

Clinton-backer Hilary Rosen ...

Senator Clinton's speech last night was a justifiably proud recitation of her accomplishments over the course of this campaign, but it did not end right. She didn't do what she should have done. As hard and as painful as it might have been, she should have conceded, congratulated, endorsed and committed to Barack Obama. Therefore the next 48 hours are now as important to the future reputation of Hillary Clinton as the last year and a half have been.

We were just going over today's episode of TPMtv. And I think my favorite 'look on the bright side' moment from the Fox News contributors' reaction to the McCain trainwreck was when Fred Barnes said how Gerald Ford actually ended up becoming a better speaker over time.

We've had a lot of requests for Sen. McCain's already-legendarily awful prebuttal to Obama speech. And here it is ...

After much consideration, we've decided that tomorrow's episode of TPMtv will simply have to be a round-up of all the pundit response to the McCain trainwreck. Even the Foxies couldn't help dumping on it.

McCain: On second thought, I support President Bush's warrantless wiretap program and president's warpowers trump the laws and the courts.

Obama wins.

Here at TPM HQ we're watching John McCain's prebuttal to Sen. Obama's speech tonight.

And, man, I'm curious to hear what other people think, but I really feel like he would have served himself much better by just going to ground for the evening.

McCain is often very good when he speaks extemporaneously. Even better in 2000. But still good. He's also good in debates. But giving set piece speeches, let's face it, he's simply awful. He finds it impossible to pretend he's actually thinking what he's saying. But this whole speech is defensive in character (explaining why he's not running for Bush's third term), awkward and just feels old. The slogan seems to be: Am Not McSame!

The crowd of maybe like 200 people is also sort of an unfortunate contrast.

Late Update: Here's how bad it is. All the Fox commentators are giving competing explanation for why McCain's speech sucked.

And here it is ...

That long-predicted flood of super-delegates has finally arrived. In our feature to the right you can see the link to Eric Kleefeld's running count of Obama's delegate total for today, pre-primaries. As of 5:36 PM on the East Coast, he's at a 19.5 delegate pick up for the day.

So just to be clear that makes it close to a mathematical certainty that by the end of this evening Barack Obama will have gone over the 2118 delegates necessary to clinch the Democratic nomination.

From Newsday ...

Even if reports that Hillary Clinton will acknowledge Barack Obama has enough votes to win, one man is urging her to stay in it.

Former top strategist Mark Penn, reviled by many on Hillary's staff but still an important voice in the candidate's ear, has emerged (to no one's surprise) as the strongest advocate of her remaining in the race regardless of what happens in the next 24 hours, according to sources inside the campaign.

In contrast to the "realist faction" (which reportedly includes Penn's replacement Geoff Garin, communications chief Howard Wolfson and others), Penn is advising the Clintons to remain in the race through the convention -- just in case another Rev. Wright-type scuffle breaks out.

His argument: Suspend the campaign if you must, but don't end it, because all those Obama supers will flock to Hillary if more dirt on O emerges before the convention.

Really, on several levels, this is no surprise. Whatever bad blood there still may be between the rival camps, Garin, Wolfson and pretty much everyone else I can think of on that campaign are Democrats. On every level of meaning of the word. Except Penn.

I don't just mean that in a pejorative sense but more in a descriptive one. He has no attachment to the Democratic party or really anything it stands for, even by a very broad definition. He works for the Clintons. He's got his corporate clients. But that's basically it. From the standpoint of his allegiances, it's actually a logical call.

Late Update: For the record, Penn himself sends in the following via email to TPM: "Story is just not accurate and I can't disclose what advice I did give or options I outlined."

Bush says we'll be in Iraq a mere 40 years.

"This is the great war of our times. It is going to take forty years."

I know there's still some disagreement about whether tonight will bring us the end of the Democratic party's nomination process. But there's no question that it is the last primary or caucus. And like every other primary and caucus night of this cycle, we'll be right here bringing you the results live as they come. And we'll be here until all the results are known.

Tonight, most of the polling stations in South Dakota will close at 8 PM Eastern. But they won't start reporting the results until 9 PM when polls close in the Mountain Time Zone part of state. Polls close in Montana at 10 PM Eastern. (TPMCafe reader/blogger Nate Biehl is reporting from on the ground in Montana throughout the day.)

There are also a couple of congressional primaries we'll be covering -- the Democratic primary in New Jersey, pitting Sen. Frank Lautenberg against Rep. Rob Andrews, and the Republican primary in New Mexico in which Rep. Heather Wilson squares off against Rep. Steve Pearce for the privilege of being slaughtered by Democratic Rep. Tom Udall in November.

And if all that isn't enough TPM Election Central's Greg Sargent will be reporting live from the Hillary Clinton election night victory party across town from TPM World Headquarters.

So join us.

It looks like the curtain may be drawing to a close on the Obama-Clinton drama. But what about Terry McAuliffe, who's raised campaign spinning to something approaching performance art. And I'm not kidding or being facetious about my admiration. When a campaign manager for a major presidential candidate shows up on set wearing a Hawaiian shirt with a bottle of rum as a prop, you know you're in unexplored territory. As we wait for the events of the evening we take a moment to review Terry's recent oeuvre ...

High-res version at Veracifier.com.

A Kos diarist reports in on a townhall meeting Rep. Robert Wexler (D), a prominent Obama supporter, held tonight with his predominantly Clinton-supporting constituents.

With so much going on in the news and at TPM, I wanted to take a moment to introduce you to our two new reporter-bloggers at TPMmuckraker.com. Reporting from Washington, DC is Andrew Tilghman -- see his bio here. And working from the New York headquarters is Kate Klonick.

We got a lot of great applications. (If our means allowed it we probably would have hired a half dozen of them.) And one thing I will say is that these are really challenging jobs to hire for because there's no real track record of anyone doing precisely what we have these folks doing. If I were hiring for a politics reporter at a big city paper or a story editor for a magazine, I know that would be hard too. But there's a track record of people doing this kind of work and with a resume and clips and recommendations you can make reasonable judgments about whether the applicant has the experience and skills to do the job.

In our case, we need to rely a lot more on intuition since by definition, almost no one we hire has done what we're hiring them to do. But we took a lot of time with this process. And we're confident that we've got a pair of new reporter-bloggers who are going to carry on the tradition of their predecessors at the site and dig like crazy to find the stories that others are missing and bring you the nimble mix of aggregation and original reporting that the site has gained a reputation for.

So I encourage you to drop either or both of them a line welcoming them aboard, offering encouragement, advice, critiques and tips on stories that you think are ripe for more digging.

I'd of course seen Mayhill Fowler's piece on Bill Clinton going after Todd Purdum in Huffpo. But I hadn't seen this nugget buried down in the transcript, which TPM Reader LD flagged for me ...

They had all these people standing up in this church cheering, calling Hillary a white racist, and he didn't do anything about it. The first day he said 'Ah, ah, ah well.' Because that's what they do-- he gets other people to slime her. So then they saw the movie they thought this is a great ad for John McCain-- maybe I better quit the church. It's all politics.

Like so many things I've seen from Bill this cycle, I think I just pass the punch of this passage on without comment.

But there's one subnugget of this nugget that grabbed my attention. I think the most revealing thing about this quote is that Bill refers to the youtube viral video of Rev. Pfleger as "the movie." In a sense, of course, this is just a triviality of word choice; he's a little out of touch with the lingo. But for me -- maybe just the personal prism through which I see the drama -- it communicates the larger truth: that Bill is a man out of his time, out of his element, which is something painful to watch and must be a unique agony for him to experience.

Bill Clinton was on so many levels the master of the politics of the 1980s and 1990s, the magic with words and connection with people, intuitively sizing up the tempo and undercurrents of the political moment. Hate him or love him, I think anybody with a feel for politics knew this. And I loved him.

I don't mean to write his epitaph. He's obviously got the same shrewdness and political canniness on many levels. But again and again through this cycle, in little ways and big, he's shown he's not quite in sync with this political era, doesn't quite grasp the new mechanics -- both the ideological texture and the nuts and bolts of the networked news cycle. Attacks have backfired. And while Clinton's emotions and impulsiveness have always been key to his character and political sensibility, whereas in the past it was him riding the tiger of his outsized personality and passions, now it's the tiger riding him.

If you step back from the carnage and electricity of this nomination battle, you see a vast drama that compares in its own way with any other in modern American history. And part of that shows you that it's on the Democrats' side of the aisle today that the questions roiling the country are being hashed out and decided. But if I were a novelist, it's not Obama or Hillary but Bill, in the current moment, who would fire my imagination. Perhaps some hybrid of Arthur Miller and William Faulkner, fresh from the cloning laboratories, could put it all together on paper. The incandescent rage, the political master just out of touch with the moment. The level of his investment in Hillary's campaign (on any number of novel-bearing levels) is palpable and not fully explained by anything as mundane as the hunger for power or as simple as guilt. And yet the circumstances of the race have forced him to stand just off-stage, where he's close enough to interfere but not to control or direct. It must be a unique kind of hell for him.

From the AP ...

Vice President Dick Cheney threw a verbal insult at West Virginians on Monday, but quickly apologized.

Talking about his family roots and how he's distantly related to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, the vice president noted that he had Cheneys on both sides of his family.

"And we don't even live in West Virginia," Cheney quipped.

"You can say those things when you're not running for re-election."

Like any big scandal, the US Attorney firing scandal had any number of tendrils and vines stretching out from the main body of the plant. In this particular story some of the most interesting were a series of prosecutions of Democrats around the country which may or may not have been evidence of the push for politicized prosecutions that got those other US Attorneys fired. The shining example seems to be that of former Gov. Don Siegelman (D) of Alabama, which is still playing out. Then there was the case against Dr. Cyril Wecht, the high-profile coroner of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.

Then there was the case of Geoffrey Fieger, who you probably know best as the longtime lawyer for Dr. Jack Kevorkian, but is also a reasonably high-profile Dem and was actually the Democratic nominee for governor of Michigan in 1998. Feiger was indicted last year for allegedly making more than $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions to John Edwards' 2004 presidential campaign.

Late last year, during pre-trial proceedings Fieger's attorneys convinced the federal district judge in the case that there was at least some reason to think that politics may have been behind the prosecution. And today a jury acquited Fieger of all charges.

I try to assume as little as possible about the intent behind these various prosecutions. Some cases like the Siegelman prosecutions I've looked very closely at. And I've always thought that that one stunk to high heaven. This case I know less about. But a jury of Fieger's peers seems to have thought this one didn't pass muster. And there was so much corruption in the Gonzales DOJ that, for better or worse, every indicted Democrat under his reign (or probably more fair to say Bush's and Rove's) has a presumption in his or her favor.

From McClatchy's Jonathan Landay ...

The presumptive Republican nominee for president and the leading contender for the Democratic nomination are exaggerating what's known about Iran's nuclear program as they duel over how best to deal with Tehran.

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., say that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

The U.S. intelligence community, however, thinks that Iran halted an effort to build a nuclear warhead in mid-2003, and the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, which is investigating the program, has found no evidence to date of an active Iranian nuclear-weapons project.

Cheney's daughter: Bush and Condi going soft on Palestinians.

A number of you have written in to ask whether John Albaugh -- the last DOJ catch in the Abramoff investigation -- is related to Joe Allbaugh, Bush power-crony who turned FEMA over to Michael Brown. The names appear to be spelled differently so I believe the answer is no.

As you probably seen, there's been a rush of stories today predicting a quick move to shutter Hillary Clinton's campaign, as soon as Tuesday night but more likely on Wednesday. The most detailed story is Tom Edsall's from Huffpo.

We're working our sources too. And Obama spokesman Bill Burton confirms to our Greg Sargent that the two did speak yesterday evening but denies that there was more than that.

It's probably worth also pointing out the obvious, which is that after tomorrow night, the Democratic nominating process will literally be over. No more primaries, no more caucuses, no more disputed delegations waiting to be resolved. There's a remaining question whether Obama can get enough supers before or soon after tomorrow night's voting to actually clinch it. But with thing going on for so long I think many of us have gotten to a point where we can't quite believe this would ever end. But at a certain it's no longer a matter of a concession. It just ends. But it does look like we'll have some confirmation of where this is going in a matter of days, perhaps even not too many hours.

Late Update: In another bit of tea leaves, the undeclared Democratic senators (who are of course also superdelegates) are meeting this afternoon to discuss how to go forward.

Late In The Primary Process Update: Here's what Clinton's top fundraiser, Hassan Nemazee, told Greg Sargent about reports she'll drop out Tuesday.