So the commenters over at The New York Times' editorial about Sen. Hillary Clinton's assassination gaffe are all, "You suck, Hillary!" And after 686 such comments, the Gray Lady has pulled the plug. You can no longer express your opinion of the Senator there, just like you can no longer jump on the goonish hate pile that Emily Gould was treated to at that venerable news site. So congratulations, "Diplomatic," your frenzied "NOT ready on DAY ONE!!" will forever be the final word. Some other choice words after the jump.

Turns out the frenzy over Sen. Hillary Clinton's unwise decision to invoke the murder of Robert Kennedy while schmoozing some newsfolk can be traced back to that old reliable right wing conspiracy. "Mrs. Clinton's remarks were initially reported online by The New York Post, whose reporters were not traveling with the Clinton campaign but were instead watching a live video feed of the meeting with newspaper editors. Its report quickly jumped to the Drudge Report, then whipped around the Internet and on television, with outraged comments piling up on Web sites."

Oh Senator Hillary Clinton, would you please, please, please, please, please stop talking! When the Sioux Falls Argus Leader asked her why she's still campaigning, she mused, "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California." Hinting, in other words, that, you know, that Sen. Barack Obama, who's young and beloved and Kennedy-y, might get straight-up murdered in the coming weeks. Today she's apologizing for that, but now everyone's pointing out that she's been peddling that scenario for months!

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama traded states again last night, but Obama is only a handful of delegates away from securing the Democratic Party's nomination. The latest Web metric — widgets embedded on social-network pages — puts him firmly in the lead against John McCain. If only widgets counted as much as having a Republican running voting-machine maker Diebold. [ReadWriteWeb] (Photo by Steve Jurvetson)

This flier has reportedly been circulating throughout Puerto Rico, which holds its primaries on June 1. As you can see, it features a poorly Photoshopped version of Barack Obama dressed up as dreaded Dominican. There's no indication the Hillary Clinton campaign is actually connected to this flier. And really, why would she go to the trouble? The lesson: West Virginians and Puerto Ricans have more in common than they think. Click to enlarge. [via Ad Age] [UPDATE: A tipster points out that this flier is a spoof! It comes from the all-day-jokers at 23/6. There are some anti-Hillary ones too, so let's just say everyone everywhere is racist and sexist and leave it at that.]

Remember Barack Obama's mysterious Abercrombie posse? The sticker cultists behind the Clintons? Doesn't anyone screen the people who sit behind candidates anymore? Our esteemed videographers put together this collection of all the loonies mugging for the camera and distracting from the candidate. Just one more thing we'll miss about the primary season, until it begins again in 2010. (If this one actually ends. Kentucky and Oregon were last night. Obama won Oregon, as predicted. Clinton scored a ridiculously large victory in tiny Kentucky, as predicted. Clinton didn't drop out, as predicted. John McCain did something quasi-unethical with some lobbyists too, probably.)

In two days, the New York Times published three pieces—by Kate Zernike, Peggy Orenstein, and Jodi Kantor—on Hillary Clinton, misogyny, and the first woman president. Orenstein, writing from Berkeley, does not "consider Senator Clinton a victim." She doesn't like Hillary, in other words, but the senator is maybe a useful lesson for her daughter in how the world will shit on her if she's ambitious. There is a long way left to go! In the meantime, we shall distract our daughters with cookies. In the Week in Review, Zernike, writing more practically, asked who the first lady president will be. Answer: kinda like a male president, but more so.

John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama tonight in a masterstroke of Clintonian gladhanding. The timing of the endorsement certainly shouldn't improve Edwards' reputation as a slick, ambulance-chasing lawyer. He waited until the Democratic presidential hopeful had a virtual lock on the nomination, but not so long that his endorsement would be totally useless. Thus, he preserved the chance to be a part of Hillary Clinton's cabinet for as long as that looked possible, but still managed to score some points with Obama. I'm not saying he planned it all along, because who knew Clinton would stay in the fight this long, but he certainly seized the opportunity she presented to offer a very-low-risk endorsement with significant potential personal upside. Also: Major gripe with the Edwards endorsement coverage in the Times and Washington Post:

The problem with exit poll data that shows that Clinton voters won't back Obama in November (or vice versa) is that the voters are being polled seconds after voting for someone some pollster tells them is a loser. So it should always be taken with a grain of salt. Except in West Virginia, obviously, where we're pretty sure everyone willing to vote for Obama did so yesterday.

We hope you people are happy. Harvey Weinstein is going to ruin Fraggle Rock and it's all because you didn't elect Hillary Clinton. [Observer]

Declared-dead Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton seems intent on nailing shut her campaign's coffin. Here's what she just told a USA Today reporter: "'I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on.' ...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.'" UPDATE: There's a recording of Clinton saying this to the reporter, after the jump

Animal New York ran Matt Drudge's montage of horrifying Hillary Clinton pics through something called the Warhol Art Maker, and the result is the glorious piece of art above. Not bad, eh? Or at least, you know, something that won't haunt your nightmares for eternity, which is an improvement. Even Obama supporters might like to frame and hang this, assuming Clinton drops out as the punditocracy near-unanimously says she will soon do, to fondly remember the good old days. [Animal]

Hollywood strongman Harvey Weinstein is a big supporter of Hillary Clinton, because they share a similar megalomania. Weinstein, who throws a great deal of showbiz money at Democrats and who is known for his Hulk-esque temper, reportedly called up House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last month to threaten her unless the Dems handed his gal Hillary the nomination. Weinstein said he'd cut of all money to Dem congressional campaigns unless Pelosi backed the Clinton campaign's unfeasible plan to get the Dems to pay for brand new elections in Florida and Michigan. Weinsein has denied it all. Or at least he denied that it was a "threat." He owns up to calling Pelosi and "offering" "to put together a team of people to help finance a revote in Florida and Michigan." Then he threatened to eat the officials who leaked details of the call. Weinsein's owned up to a bad temper before, once telling Ken Auletta that it's the thing he dislikes most about himself. In fact, Weinstein's temper makes Weinstein so angry he feels like he's going to explode. An Entourage clip exploring this famous bad mood in a comedic style may be found after the jump.

Barack Obama is like Kermit the Frog: Someone else may be your personal favorite, but he's the one that gets the most attention, so he's the one who ends up in all the parodies. Obama can be mashed up with any meme, because anyone can assign him any qualities: like Kermit, his everyman status makes him ripe for satire. To demonstrate, in no particular order but numbered anyway, here are the top twelve memes that have carried Obama to the nomination.

Here's George McGovern on CNN explaining why he repealed his October endorsement of Hillary Clinton and now favors her Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama. "I don't want to see a repeat of what happened to me in 1972," when Democrat McGovern was defeated by Republican Richard Nixon in a landslide. Just — wow. Harsh.

Internet gossip Matt Drudge parted with his precious, carefully-assembled hoard of scary Hillary Clinton photos in the clearest indication yet that It Is Definitely Over for the Democratic presidential candidate. Drudge gleefully culls these pics from magazines and newspapers every morning and keeps them in a scrapbook under his bed. But he knows they'll be worthless soon so he's rushed them onto the internet, probably while crying bitter tears of loss. A bunch of talking heads said last night that Clinton was done for, and even more say so in the Drudge-linked clip after the jump.

Loud, shouty, occasional magician Penn Jillette was on MSNBC, talking about politics. Why? It's unclear. He had some misogynistic anti-Hillary joke that became a YouTube thing a while back. Now the joke is old and tired (like HILLARY CLINTON, right??) but Penn dutifully repeated, along with his claim that the fact that the joke went over so well with his crazy audience meant Hil was doomed from day one. He doesn't really seem to think that says anything too terrible about the nation, but whatever. Point is: arbiter of civility Joe Scarborough disapproved. And sad Mika Brzezinski said only, "I don't like that." Clip attached.

For some reason, CBS called Indiana for Hillary Clinton at 8 p.m. or so last night, hours before anyone else dared. Katie Couric interrupted whatever nonsense they had on at the time and the CBS news website dutifully posted their story. They even got a Drudge link! So there's a lesson for you: better to be first than right. Maybe as a network without a cable news station CBS just decided to let their election coverage team go home early? Because everyone else had to stay up until 1 a.m., when the hanky panky in Lake County, Indiana finally ended and Clinton won her tiny, tiny victory. A tiny vicory that was immediately stomped upon by everyone from Drudge to Tim Russert. It's over, all the pundits said. You can go to bed! But America can't go to bed, because Hil's still staying up for that 3 a.m. call. The death march continues!

Hillary Clinton squeaked by with 23,000 votes in Indiana. The Democratic presidential candidate ran out of money. Supposedly she has canceled public appearances the next few days. Matt Drudge and Tim Russert say it's over. Who is still standing behind Clinton, chanting "Yes she can?" Crazy dead-ender cult people like the ones in the picture above, with goddamned stickers on their foreheads. After the jump, Gawker videographer Richard Blakeley (who spotted the stickers) imagines the conversation that led to this awful visual: