Op-edification:

In the delicate world of diplomatic protocol, mispronouncing a foreign leader's name ranks among the worst of faux pas. But that is lost on many Americans. Who can forget Hillary Rodham Clinton's verbal gymnastics after being asked by Tim Russert to name the new president of Russia? (Most transcripts cleaned it up as "Medvedev -- whatever.") Or recall the guffawing last September after a draft of President Bush's speech before the United Nations was found that included the phonetic spellings of several names of foreign countries and leaders. Among them: Harare (hah-RAR-ray) and Mugabe (moo-GAH-bee).

At a time when the United States is trying to improve its image abroad, mangling the names of foreign dignitaries does not help. Nowhere is this issue more sensitive than at the United Nations, where diplomats view the mispronunciation of names as a subtle if passive-aggressive form of U.N. bashing.

Couldn't agree more. The Clinton-Medvedev incident, in particular, was absolutely pathetic (mostly because I like to hope imagine pretend that Democrats are above that kind of petty ridiculousness). The one thing I would add, though, is that it's not just about U.N. bashing; they do it domestically, too. "Barack" is not the same word as "barrack," Pat Buchanan.

John McCain declares his distaste for "activist judges." Or, as they're known to anyone with a more-than-rudimentary understanding of the judicial system, "judges."

Kos, thinking big picture:

If Clinton were to drop out this week, we'd face an uncomfortable situation in West Virginia, with Clinton likely crushing Obama. That would look terrible for the presumptive nominee.

Better than that would be to garner enough superdelegate commitments this week, so that Oregon can push Obama past 2,024. That way, it isn't the supers who clinch it for Obama, but actual voters.

A rosy picture:

Clinton advisers acknowledged that the results of the primaries were far less than they had hoped, and said they were likely to face new pleas even from some of their own supporters for her to quit the race. They said they expected fund-raising to become even harder; one adviser said the campaign was essentially broke, and several others refused to say whether Mrs. Clinton had lent the campaign money from her personal account to keep it afloat.

She's in it to win it!

Update: The Times writes that "the conventional wisdom of the elite political pundit class that resides on television shifted hard, and possibly irretrievably, against Senator Hillary Clinton’s continued viability as a presidential candidate" [nice of them to notice], and reveals that "Clinton has lent her campaign more than $6 million over the last month," as her "options dwindle." Clearly the latte-drinking, can't-bowl-its-way-out-of-a-wet-paper-bag New York Times has allowed itself to become distracted by Obama's Elite Math.

Other Update: John Zogby ("There really is no mathematical chance for her to win") is a perfectly dignified man, and a canny pollster. But I swear, every time I picture the guy, I imagine this. I blame Patrick Murray.

Minor leagues: positive message, low production values.
Major leagues: negative message, high production values.

[Catch-up time. Bear with me for a while.]

McCain has officially opted into the public financing system for the general. Which means that it should only be a matter of months before he opts back out again.

Observation

It's hard to watch a hockey game while simultaneously monitoring the various cable-news types (who are currently muted, and making a determined effort to silently out-terrible each other). It's very hard to do those two things while focusing any significant portion of one's brain on thinking coherent thoughts about cap-and-trade.

Incidentally, the official Purple State prediction (a tradition unlike any other): Clinton 54-46.

Everything that is wrong with the world:

Bob Gates doesn't support the troops.

If you're looking for a good way to waste some time...

I don't really have anything useful to say about the New York Times' Pulitzer-baiting Pentagon-media-training piece -- mostly because I haven't actually read it yet (7,500 words? I've read shorter Harry Potter books) -- but based on what I have read, I tend to agree with Glenn Greenwald: "to the extent there are new revelations here, they are a far greater indictment of our leading news organizations than the government officials on whom [the article] focuses."

Uneasy news, this:

Although John McCain's candidacy is still viewed with suspicion by many conservative leaders, polling suggests he has overcome the concerns of rank-and-file conservatives: McCain isn't viewed more unfavorably by conservative voters today than George W. Bush was at this point in the 2000 election cycle.