Sky joins BBC in misreporting US Primaries

Joining Justin Webb and his BBC colleagues and most UK newspaper political correspondents in their refusal to accept that the Hillary campaign is over is Adam Boulton of Sky.

Before today's Democrat Rules Committee, where even some Hillary supporters defected over Michigan, Bolton breathlessly reported that:

To my certain knowledge the Clinton campaign is drawing up a legal case to challenge the legitimacy of the entire 2008 Nomination Process.

At the core of this is a furious attack on the caucus system.

The problem with this 'exclusive' is there is no legal case, as a wee bit of research would establish.

Washington Post: Court Lets 'Party Boss' Law Stand, Reluctantly

"None of our cases establishes an individual's constitutional right to have a 'fair shot' at winning the party's nomination," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the court.

But the Supreme Court said there is nothing in New York's process that violates the Constitution. "Party conventions, with their attendant 'smoke-filled rooms' and domination by party leaders, have long been an accepted manner of selecting party candidates," Scalia wrote.

More broadly, the opinion said, "A political party has a First Amendment right to limit its membership as it wishes and to choose a candidate-selection process that will in its view produce the nominee who best represents its political platform."

The only way to do anything - and for politicos it's about securing, by blackmail, the vice-presidency or, conspiratorially, another run in 2012 for her - is the so-called 'nuclear option' of appealing today's ruling and taking that all the way to the convention in Denver. Where she would absolutely definitively be a dead parrot.

The other Monty Python reference making the rounds is The Black Knight from Monty Python And The Holy Grail.



Her chief black knight, Harold Ickes, threatened the 'nuclear option' today.

And that's why her unlovely supporters were chanting 'Denver! Denver!' after they lost today.

The real threat is that Hillary, Bill and some of their supporters who say 'Obama will Lose to McCain!' will deliberately ensure he does; a self-fulfilling prophesy. Even though Hillary has repeatedly said she'll work for Obama to win ('should I lose').

BBC's Justin Webb calls all this "a powerful if flawed case".

But Boulton and other British reporters, like their American colleagues who have been getting it wrong since they were surprised in Iowa then miscalled New Hampshire, have a real interest in prolonging the show. For it is a show.

The reality is it's been over mathematically since March and politically since even the media domination by Rev. Wright failed to dent Obama's electoral appeal. But that's all too predictable for our smug reporters on American politics and definitely not very entertaining.