Hillary's lead in the big Super Tuesday states is significant enough that what happened in the debate last night probably won't keep her from winning the nomination. But she was clearly trying to be "nice" to Obama -- agreeing with him, expressing admiration for him as a charming person, hiding away Bill Clinton somewhere off camera -- which means that she is modulating herself to appease her critics in the media, a la Gore in the second 2000 debate, which is a gesture that will not appease the media in any way but rather signal to them that she is weak and is Obama's (and their) bitch. ("Bitch" as the term is used in prison.) It would have been better for her, as the presumptive nominee with many months of campaigning ahead of her, to continue to gleefully savage Obama. Now in just three weeks we've seen crying Hillary, nasty Hillary, and patty-cakes Hillary, but all three are simply roles she has taken on, with varying levels of alacrity, in a futile attempt to please her masters in the media who cannot ever be pleased with her because the entire point of their jobs is to punish her.

McCain's moment has passed and he is going to be a terrible candidate with no money. He said he wants the Iraq war to last 100 years, which I think is all that needs to be said about him in order to defeat him. The question is whether Hillary is really going to be able to make the election about McCain and his deficiencies when she has already agreed with the media that it is right and proper for them to focus mainly on her and her deficiencies.