In an article posted Sunday to the front page of its website, The New York Times uses this article about calls for Senator Clinton to leave the race as an opportunity to move the goalposts once again for Hillary:

Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont hold primary contests [on Tuesday], and the Clinton campaign, trailing in the delegates needed for nomination and having lost the last 11 straight contests, has acknowledged that the New York senator needs to win at least Ohio or Texas [emphasis mine]. Both candidates were campaigning Sunday in Ohio.

I've just cruised the websites of six "major" news organizations, and then tabulated their various delegate counts as of today (25 February 2008, 6 pm EST). ... This table follows after the jump, but the average of these counts shows Obama ahead by a little under 100 (pledged and unpledged) delegates:

Obama: 1,361
Clinton: 1,268

So Texas and Ohio are not her firewall now.

Maybe the Clinton campaign just needs to say this to buck up its funders and supporters. But this New York Times report looks an awful lot like Hillary moving the goalposts again:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton vowed to carry her campaign beyond the Ohio and Texas primaries on March 4, despite the lengthening odds of her capturing the Democratic presidential nomination.

It was just a couple of days ago that former president (and former party hero) Bill Clinton told Texans that it was over if she didn't win in Ohio and Texas.

Let's review the Democratic primary landscape thus far:

1. On Super Tuesday, which was supposed to be Hillary Clinton's firewall,  Barack Obama wrestled Hillary Clinton into a tie.

2. It is easy to forget how inconceivable that outcome was just a few months ago, with Clinton widely expected to sew up the nomination no later February 5th.

3. Since then, Obama has won eleven straight primaries and caucuses, including today's Democrats Abroad victory.

4. Obama also has won more than two out of three (26 out of 37) of the primaries and caucuses held thus far.

For those Clinton supporters stoking the Obama "just words" flames, I say: Do you really want to continue this war of words?

On the front page of Tuesday's New York Times, an interesting quote from Hillary Clinton appears well above the fold:

"Mrs. Clinton told an audience that the Wisconsin primary and subsequent contests were 'a chance for all of you here to help take our country back."

ZOMG -- She said take our country back... It's plagiarism! Alert CNN, alert MSNBC, alert FoxNews, alert Lauer and Tapper and Limbaugh: Clinton is blatantly copying the language 2003-2004 presidential campaign of Howard Dean.

"Take our country back," "take your country back," "I want my country back." These, of course, were the rallying cries of Dean (and Deaniacs like myself).

In fact, Dean used the phrase in announcing his campaign on June 23rd, 2003.

Below the fold, I've gathered the current delegate tallies from six major news organizations: CBS, ABC, the A.P., CNN, MSNBC and The New York Times.

The first five media outlets all show Obama ahead in combined "pledged" and "unpledged" or "super" delegates, following his 8-state sweep after the dead heat of Super Tuesday. The average of these five tallies is:

Obama: 1,198
Clinton: 1,147

The New York Times tally, by contrast, is the only one which shows Clinton ahead -- by 83 delegates.

Now, I've been a news junkie all my life. I've only missed reading The New York Times a handful of times since I was 14 years old, and I'm in my late 30s.

So when I see the slanted way the Times as a whole -- not just its editorial department -- has handled the Democratic nominating process, I'm filled with dismay. Despite it's many failings, I considered this "my" paper -- at least until the Judith Miller debacle.

And paste it on telephone polls, in your workplace, bus kiosks, everywhere:

Type your own. No need to get fancy. The text says it all.

Or download a PDF here.

It takes 30 seconds. All you need is an ordinary inkjet printer, regular paper, pushpins, a stapler or tape -- and the dream of making change.

"She'll garnish your wages." If Senator Hillary Clinton is chosen as the Democratic nominee, mark my words: This will be a lead slogan for the Republican opposition.

And it goes to show that despite all her talk of "experience," Clinton has not learned much about politics since the early 90s.

Let me go back a couple of steps to provide some context to the argument.

Hillary Clinton and her supporters regularly tout the Senator and former First Lady as the candidate of experience.

But I submit that she is the candidate of bad experience, and of failing to learn from experience. And on this subject, the topic of how to promote universal health care in this country is Exhibit A.

In the early 90s, as everyone knows, Hillary Clinton tried but failed to reform the nation's health care system. An admirable goal... but secrecy and political hamhandedness abetted the health care industry, its lobbyists, and its paid defenders in Congress, who sent her plan down in flames.

Clinton, while touting her experience, spins this negative example as a "learning experience," one that redoubled her commitment to getting it right the next time.

But has she really learned from her mistake? Read on...

When it comes to Hillary Clinton, there is no shortage of unfair and unprincipled reasons for disliking her -- and if you listen to AM talk radio for an hour, you'll probably hear them all.

I reject the sexism of those who still think a former First Lady has no place in policy debates, just as I reject the absurd theories of those who think she had a hand in the death of her close friend Vince Foster.

Having volunteered on Clinton's first senate campaign, I get mad when I hear Rush Limbaugh savage her as a liar and an opportunist. I'm also grateful to her for keeping Rudy Guiliani and Rick Lazio out of the Senate.

But you don't have to be a sexist or a conspiracy theorist to oppose Clinton's candidacy.

I don't dislike Hillary; I distrust her. And my reasons are both substantive, and based on direct personal experience.

When a major issue hit the area where I live, New York's Hudson Valley, Clinton was less than honest with her constituents, and all too eager to take credit where none was due.

Newspapers do it. Politicians do it. Celebrities do it. Diarists do it.

With Super Tuesday less than 10 days away, and both the Democratic and Republican nominations still in play, the endorsements are flying.

I began to make my own master list of all these endorsements. But then I realized: What is the internet (and Daily Kos) best for, if not these kinds of collaborative projects.

So I'm asking for your help and participation. This diary will be short, and slightly unconventional in its comment format. More after the jump...

Since there is very little chance of the New York Times printing this letter, I'm going to post it here, after the jump...

The New York Times' Lichtblau and Hulse report that the Dems in Congress "seem ready to extend wiretap powers" for the Bush administration:

Two months after insisting that they would roll back broad eavesdropping powers won by the Bush administration, Democrats in Congress appear ready to make concessions that could extend some crucial powers given to the National Security Agency.

So what's the problem the Dems have with protecting our Constitution, our liberties, our trust in government? You guessed it:

Although willing to oppose the White House on the Iraq war, they remain nervous that they will be called soft on terrorism if they insist on strict curbs on gathering intelligence.

So I woke up this morning to news in The New York Times that Homeland Tsar Mike Chertoff and the other top administration "security" officials had appeared in the Senate this morning to warn that Bad People are still out there, trying to attack us.

Terror, terror, terror. Fear, fear, fear. Neatly timed just before today's big presentation by General Petraeus.

I wondered: How on earth, in a Democratically-controlled Congress, did the fearmongers get this golden opportunity to tee this fearmongering up, right before Petraeus's appearance?

Oh, silly me. It was thanks to Joe Lieberman. Details after the jump...

Why am I not shocked? Because I've been shocked so many times, I can barely "feel" the news anymore.

The New York Times' Eric Lichtblau breaks the unsurprising but nonetheless galling news:

[D]ocuments indicate that the F.B.I. used secret demands for records to obtain data not only on the person it was targeting but also details on his or her "community of interest" -- the network of people that the target in turn was in contact with.

But rest assured... The F.B.I. says they're no longer doing this. Do you feel better?

SUSAN G: Let the joyous news be spread, the wicked old Turd at last is dead!

Clearly, folks, we need to buck up our own party.

The recent debacle of Congressional Democrats caving into an unpopular president and corrupt Attorney General has many of us wondering what we can do now, other than walk away from politics in disgust.

In my experience, the one thing that these Congresscritters pay attention to is media exposure in their home districts -- the places where they live, where their voters are. And that creates a big opportunity for each of us.

We need a locally-based but nationally-coordinated grassroots "Media Corps" which works to ensure that timely, strong and progressive messages appear in local newspapers, radio and TV stations -- and to ensure that our Congressmen see the results.

Look, we have the blogosphere covered. "Left-leaning" blogs vastly outnumber and outwit the wingnuts. But our elected officials still pay homage to traditional media forms, and the traditional media are still dominated by the right.

Changing the MSM is a long, tough process. But there exist many opportunities to work toward that goal from the ground up. Ordinary citizens can't get a meeting with the heads of ABC, NBC and CBS, but we can get the attention of local news directors, editorial boards, reporters, and radio programs.

Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Abraham is the worst nightmare of the craven Bush adminstration and its apologists:

• A decorated intelligence officer;
• A lifelong Army reservist;
• A conservative who "cried when Nixon resigned";
• A very sharp lawyer;
• The son of a Holocaust survivor;
• Their own choice of who should manage evidence on detainees at Guantanamo.

In short, Abraham has a resumé that's tough for even the most loyal Dittohead to dismiss. And he's blowing the whistle on the Guantanamo tribunals.

In a devastating New York Times profile by William Glaberson, this paragon of the Right is saying that the tribunals used to try the anonymous detainees are "deeply flawed," "rubber stamp" affairs. He is saying the evidence against them is mostly "superficial," based on "generalizations," with accusations made on bare circumstantial clues and guilt by association.

And the courts are actually taking him seriously, as we'll see after the jump.

"And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, 'Kurt is up in heaven now.' That's my favorite joke."

-- Kurt Vonnegut

Clearly I wasn't the only one choking up this morning when the news of Kurt Vonnegut's death filtered into my RSS reader.

So for all my fellow Bokononists out there, I offer this simple diary consisting of verses and other sayings of Lionel Boyd Johnson, after the jump...