People believe what they want to believe.

On this, the morning of the sour grape, some Obamaphiles have said that Hillary won in PA because of cross-over Republicans who want her to be the nominee.

It's not true. First, PA is not a party-hopper primary state. Second, Republicans now understand that Obama is the weaker nominee. Third, Hillary won the hard-core Dems; Obama appeals to independents.

Maureen Dowd has assailed her readers with a truly epic misperception:

The Democrats are eager to move on to an Obama -McCain race. But they can't because no one seems to be able to show Hillary the door.

Dowd has decided that she has the right to define what constitutes a "Democrat."

Hillary Clinton has nosed ahead in the popular vote among Democrats (if we count MI and FL, as I think we ought). She is ahead in most of the states that actually vote Democratic in the Fall. Although Obama has decisively won African Americans, Clinton appeals to all of the other core Democratic constituencies -- the elderly, the working class, Hispanics. Outside of the black vote, Obamaphiles tend to be cappuccino-sipping hipster wanna-bes and spoiled brat college kids who pay $100 a pop for designer t-shirts.

Go here to visit Maureen's home:

The 1819 building was the first Maureen Dowd saw when she went house-hunting in 1995, and she fell for it immediately. There were the classic Georgetown details, including the six fireplaces, the wood floors, a pocket-size backyard, and what seemed like an endless number of rooms—two parlors, a den, a formal dining room, and three bedrooms.

Yet she claims to speak on behalf of the Democrats. Mere workers do not count.

The Grey Lady misperceives, in a big way.

It is true that Senator Barack Obama outspent her 2-to-1. But Mrs. Clinton and her advisers should mainly blame themselves, because, as the political operatives say, they went heavily negative and ended up squandering a good part of what was once a 20-point lead.

2-to-1? Here's the truth:

Taking the commonly bandied about number of $11 million spent in Pennsylvania, with a vote haul (from the NYT) of 1,035,230, Obama spent an average of $10.63 for each vote received.

Taking Hillary's expenditure amount of $3 million, with a vote count of 1,249,936, Hillary spent an average of $2.40 for each vote received.

That's closer to four-to-one by my reckoning.

The idea that Hillary Clinton has gone negative is absurd. The NYT conveniently forgets the entire "Clintons-as-racists" smear that was engineered by the Obama campaign. That smear was, for me, the deal-breaker. If we count the progblogs as Obama surrogates -- and we should -- then Obama has run the smeariest smear campaign in the history of smear-dom.

As James Wolcott puts it:

Shorter New York Times editorial:

Hillary Clinton's ruthless insistence on winning big-state primaries with traditional Democratic voters only hastens and strengthens the case that she drop out of the race and let Barack Obama finish his waffle.

Can we get the progblogs to quiddit awready with their crap about how much the dreaded MSM hates Barack and luvs Hill?

No. Quit it they will not. People believe what they want to believe.