Carl Bernstein says that Hillary will keep fighting until she is offered the VP spot. Bernstein knows Clinton pretty well, and he has a lot of inside contacts.

I think Obama would do just about anything to not offer the VP spot to Hillary. Anything. Especially after her "hard-working Americans, white Americans" remark. Putting her on the ticket would infuriate too many Obama backers, unite all those GOP Hillary haters, and could make John McCain president.

There is too much bad blood between them now. Obama doens't want or need Hillary and Bill Clinton trying to seize the spotlight while he's running the country.

But what if, as Bernstein says, Hillary tries to force the issue? Obama will have to shoot her down while not alienating her base. To do that, he'll need to pick a VP who can heal this division.

I've always thought that Gov. Bill Richardson would be the best VP pick. He would deliver New Mexico for Obama, and make Texas, Colorado and Nevada competitive. And his resumé balances out Obama. But taking into account Clinton's moves, this might not work out.

Another person on the short list is Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebilius. Having a woman on the ticket might heal any rifts Obama has with women voters, and Sebilius can help Obama in the purple states by pulling in moderates. But she doesn't help him on foreign policy, which is McCain's only line of attack.

One way to help heal the rift with Clinton and help the ticket might be to pick Gen. Wesley Clark. He's an old Clinton friend, and his military experience will help counter attacks by McCain.

The wild card is Sen. Jim Webb. He would bring the military and executive experience, and he's a former Republican. And he has some skeletons in his closet in the form of sexist writings he did in the past that Hillary boosters might attack if they want to go kamikazi on Obama. Picking him would be a big FU to Hillary's people.

OK, so here's my odds list for VP:

• Clark: 2-1
• Richardson: 3-1
• Sebilius: 6-1
• Webb: 7-1
• Clinton: 10-1

Clinton supporter Paul Krugman had to get one more column in bashing Obama.

He starts out by conceding that the race is over. At least he can count. He then says to ignore early polls that say Sen. John McCain has a fighting chance to win, as polls this early in the process don't mean anything. But then he goes on to say Obama is in big trouble because the polls show he has "a deep but narrow base consisting of African-Americans and highly educated whites" and that he can't win over white voters, that he is losing them 60-40.

As for the cause of this racial division, he says "But at this point it doesn’t matter whose fault it was." Then he goes on to criticize Obama supporters for their "tirades" against Hillary. He also throws in the Clinton talking point about seating the delegates from Florida and Michigan.

Gee, there is so much wrong here its here it's hard to know where to start. If Krugman thinks seating Michigan and Florida are important, then maybe he should have said something about the Clinton campaign's rejection of the newest Michigan plan to seat all their delegates. Or, when talking about "tirades" fostering racial divisions, perhaps Krugman could have mentioned Hillary's statement that her "broad" base consists of "hard-working Americans, white Americans," or Bill Clinton's remarks in South Carolina.

I could also point out that if the tables were reversed and it was Clinton who had the lead in delegates, we could say that she would be in trouble since she is losing the black vote 90-10, a group she was winning 60-40 in the past. And Democrats can't win without black votes in November.

But the biggest trap Krugman falls into is trying to draw inferences from primary results and applying them to the general election.

Look at the GOP. A couple of months ago, hardcore conservatives like Rush Limbaugh were adamantly anti-McCain. Now they are actively campaigning for him. Why? Because there is no where else for them to go.

Blue-collar Democrats who voted for Hillary aren't likely to cross over for McCain. They don't want 100 years of war in Iraq and more of the same Bush policies. And women aren't about to elect a presidnet who puts another anti-abortion judge on the Supreme Court. They might disagree with Obama, but they'll still pull the lever for him in November.

Hopefully we have seen the last of Krugman's illogically Clinton boosting.

Obama looks like he's on the path to free himself from his controversial pastor.

Perhaps I've become too cynical during this long campaign, but doesn't it seem that all of this is too easy? Rev. Wright comes out and acts like a buffoon, giving Obama the chance to ditch him in a very public way, erasing any doubt if he held the same views. Could this be a set up, a gift by Wright to his friend?

Doubtful, but if Obama really does succeed, watch for the accusations to fly.

Kos breaks down Pennsylvania results and finds that Obama gained in Central PA:

Finally, we should note the irony of central Pennsylvania's support of Obama. These are the locations where you can find many of the "small towns" about which Obama was speaking in San Francisco - and yet they seemed to be tilted in his favor. In a certain sense, small town Pennsylvanians preferred Obama more than the rest of the state!

A lot has been said by the Clinton campaign about Bill Ayers, the guy who Barack Obama crossed paths with and is now the target of this McCarthyite guilt-by-association attacks. Clinton's people keep saying that Ayers had no regrets about the bombings committed in his Weather Underground days, and that he thinks they didn't do enough. Turns out that's not what he said at all. But don't let a little truth get in the way.

But if you want to see how the GOP buddy up with terrorists, go see this by Juan Cole.

Big Dog thinks you should vote for the candidate of hope, and beware of the candidate of fear.

Let's see, the Clintons rake in $109 million in the last seven years, the McCains are worth hundreds of millions and own eight houses, but it's Barack Obama who is the elitist? When was the last time either of these other candidates actually went shopping, or had to buy their own health insurance?

And since when did Hillary become pro-gun?

Karl Rove's playbook is getting some overtime use here. Attack your opponent's strength.

Robert Reich has a great comeback about Obama and bitterness-gate.

A lot of this is going on because there's not much else happening in the campaign. The Media pundits have to fill all that time with something, so they drum up this "major" gaffe and talk endlessly about it, as if it means something.

Paul Krugman starts out his column today with a call for universal health care, but then goes back on the anti-Obama crusade:

Look, I know that many progressives have their hearts set on seeing Barack Obama get the Democratic nomination. But politics is supposed to be about more than cheering your team and jeering the other side. It’s supposed to be about changing the country for the better.

Perhaps someone should remind him of the the column and blog posts he spent bashing Obama for supposedly praising Ronald Reagan, when in fact Obama wasn't praising Reagan. Or any of the other smacks he's made against Obama. People who live in glass houses...

Here is the best rundown on the Democratic delegate race I've seen. It spells out in no uncertain terms that Hillary Clinton has at much chance of winning the nomination as the Republicans do of taking back control of the House. Sure, there's still a chance, but the odds are very long.

The controversy surrounding Barack Obama's relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright has been an amazing thing to watch. I've had a lot of questions and emails about this subject, and I think the reactions point out just how far we have to go to bridge the racial divide.

Those who are criticizing Obama for his association with Rev. Wright seem to fall into two categories. Some think that Obama is secretly a racist because he spent 20 years in Rev. Wright's church. while others think his refusal to throw Wright under a bus means his judgment is questionable.

I think what it really says is that there are a lot of people who can't get past their own racism.

Take the first group. In order to attain his mainstream candidate status, Obama has had to go above and beyond everyone to prove he's not like those other black people, that he's not "racist" or anti-white. He was asked to pass the Farrahkan Test, to denounce the infamous Nation of Islam leader, not because there was some connection between the two, but because no black politician can be considered credible without doing so.

White people are afraid that a black politician may harbor some of that racism that for so long kept them oppressed, and that they might spin it back their way if they get into power. It's a guilt trip. No matter what Geraldine Ferraro says, Obama has had to go above and beyond to make it to where he is today, because of his race.

But let's go deeper. I think it speaks volumes that the first viable black presidential candidate it half white and raised by a white mother far away from the ghetto. Even so, would Obama have been elected to any political office if he had started his political career in a white community instead of the South Side of Chicago?

Is Obama racist? It's hard to know what is in a person's heart, but from what we know about Obama, he doesn't have the background that would point in that direction. Also, let's remember that until a few years ago, not even Obama himself would have guessed he might be running for president. Yet there's no record of him saying or doing anything remotely racist, even when it might have benefited him politically. The knock on Obama in his early career was that he was too white for his black district. He might have countered that by adopting some anti-white language, but he didn't. And believe me, if he had uttered anything that contemptible, we'd be hearing about it. His entire political career has taken place in the Internet Age, so pretty much everything he has said and done is online for everyone to see, and there are a lot of people digging for dirt on on this man.

So unless some can produce some definite proof that Obama is racist, Group One's argument is moot.

Now, for that second group, the people who think that Obama shows poor judgment by not vilifying his now-retired pastor. For months now, I have listened to Republicans who really like Obama because he represents a split from the old partisan warfare, and Rev. Wright is a good example of this. You can reject the words of someone you disagree with, but if you can't bridge the gap -- partisan or racial -- by rejecting the person. Hate the sin, but love the sinner. Isn't that the Christian thing to do? In this way, Obama is a better Christian than his pastor.

In the end, the people who are hitting Obama for this are part of the problem, and part of the past. Hatred is what fuels racism and partisan politics. You can't solve hate with hate. Hatred comes from fear, and it's time to put that fear away. Obama is the only candidate who can come close to doing this. He's not perfect, but no one is.