Great line

You just can't do better than this to open a column. (For the record -- heh heh -- here's the point of reference.)

With a whimper

As it should. The delusional plaints of the dead-enders notwithstanding, the dramatic lowering of decibel level as Bernie's campaign starts its endgame is welcome. Because there never was anything remotely like a "movement" here, its dissolution will not, in fact, be wrenching. Yes, there will probably be a few snarling outbursts here and there, but nothing worrisome.

Now the real work begins -- and of course, I don't mostly mean the presidential election, which is in the bag. I mean the Senate and even maybe the House.

Pathetic - updated

Bernie and his campaign sure are helping America. I'm surprised she didn't wear a stained blue dress with Vince Foster's picture on it.

All issues campaign, eh?

Update: And Bernie won't even repudiate it. Nice.

New York, New York

At last, a smile of simple joy.

What has become clear, 48 hours after Hillary's landslide here? Not that she will be the nominee -- that was clear, to anyone with eyes to see, after Ohio, if not even earlier, after Super Tuesday. What New York meant wasn't about the math, but about the narrative and the emotion.

Finally, Hillary Rodham Clinton was allowed to feel her victory, exuberantly, in public. Finally, after a lifetime of being denied that unadulterated and visible happiness, she could just bask in it. She could do so because there are no more poopers at the party. Everyone now knows that she will be the next President of the United States. Many hate the thought, but there's nobody left who can effectively rain on her parade.

And it's just wonderful for people like me, as for her, that it happened here, "under the bright lights of New York." "This is state and a country of big-hearted, open-minded, straight-talking, hard-working people." As she said, "This one's personal."

Start spreading the news.

He was never a serious candidate - update

Marcotte is right as far as she goes, and she's certainly right that he should drop out now. But she misses the deeper point. Yes, he's not seriously trying to win now -- for very good reasons (because it's impossible). But actually winning hasn't been a realistic possibility since Super Tuesday The internal contradiction of Bernie's campaign was that its only logic depended on not really trying to win. It was a flip of Groucho's line: "I wouldn't want to be a member of a club that would have somebody like me for a member." Bernie's not a serious candidate for president, but he was, for a time, a salutary emblem of a critique of our current politics  Turns out you can't have your cake and eat it, again.

Update: This is correct.

Update: So, it seems, is this. At least it's based on a lot of experience with him.

Update: And it's important to remember, as the Perfesser does here, that Bernie's economics were always basically trolling. They were pure smoke, and as pernicious in their way as the smoke coming from the fires of the right.

With friends like these

This editorial in tomorrow's Times on the results of the NY primary is remarkable for its nastiness toward Hillary. She won the nomination tonight, in an inspiring victory that was much bigger than anyone predicted. Isn't her hometown paper, the one that endorsed her (properly), inclined to acknowledge that and do a little celebrating? Also, Sanders didn't even deliver a concession speech to the national media, but retreated to Burlington and gave a pathetic interview on the tarmac there to local reporters. And worst of all, his campaign manager revealed the utter hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy of his campaign by insisting on MSNBC that they would fight to flip the superdelegates to overturn the will of the voters, even if/when she beats him in both votes and pledged delegates. This isn't just Baghdad Bobesque in its delusion, it's proof that his campaign is not remotely the principled rejection of cynical politics that has been its central raison d'etre. You just can't get more cynical -- and yet the Times chooses to depict him as the continuing idealist and Hillary as the distasteful candidate whom voters "simply don't like."

A new definition of chutzpah - updated

I can't believe my ears. Bernie Sanders's campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, was just on MSNBC saying that even if Hillary has won the popular vote (as she will) and the pledged delegates (as she will) after June 7, the Sanders campaign will still try to flip the superdelegates to defy the will of the people. This is the campaign whose entire raison d'etre has been its purity from the political process.

Update: Whatever else Weaver's performance just now showed about the ethics and legitimacy of the Sanders campaign, it also showed complete lack of readiness for prime time, simply in terms of professionalism. What a garden-variety political professional does when asked the question Steve Kornacki asked Weaver, he says, "Oh, we're not going to deal in hypotheticals. The campaign still has a long way to go. I'm not going to speculate about where we all might be on June 8." In other words, you duck it. That's Politics 101. This campaign can't even do that.