Countdown Friday: Bill Likes Barack
Posted: Friday, March 21, 2008 8:59 PM by Countdown
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Blogging the Countdown
The Richardson Endorsement:
Forget the 3 A-M phone call. The biggest early morning development of this campaign season might well turn out to be the 3 AM bulletin. Our fifth story on the Countdown: The office in Santa Fe sending out the urgent at three seconds after 3 AM Eastern this morning: "The Associated Press has learned that New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is endorsing Senator Barack Obama for president." Within eleven hours... veteran reporters Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen wondering if the media might be a little more "urgent" about the Democratic race... writing on Politico dot com, quote: "Hillary Rodham Clinton has virtually no chance of winning" the nomination. Governor Bill Richardson joins us in a moment...Briefly, the details...
Once More Unto the Breach:
With the comforting reassurance that it was not just the State Department Passport File of one Presidential candidate breached by some sub-contractors the way a teenager might go through his dad's Playboys -- but all three...In our fourth story tonight, the investigations have begun. Internally by State's Acting Inspector General. Externally by the House Foreign Affairs Committee.ODDBALL: A Spring celebration and the devil whipping festival rides again.
Homeland Insecurity:
Senator John McCain, running on the claim that he understands national-security issues better than Democrats do... issued a statement today on the State Department's passport breaches... referring to them, in our third story tonight, only as a matter of privacy. Apparently not believing that, six years after 9/11, no one should be able to access sensitive information, including social-security numbers:-- About three powerful U-S senators...On four separate days... Let alone non-government employees of two private companies...Let alone inside the State Department itself...Let alone without top State officials allegedly not finding out about it until months after the first episode... And finding out, from a newspaper.
Tabby Time....
WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD: Steve Doocy, Gretchen Carlson, Rupert Murdoch and Kiran Chetry vie for tonight's top honors.
Political Bracketology: A rather unexpected caller recently, to my old friends Al Morganti and Angelo Cataldi on the morning show at all-sports radio station WIP in Philadelphia. Barack from Chicago. On the day the NCAA basketball tournament began... and, as we know, ended at 6:58 Eastern Time yesterday when Stanford defeated Cornell 77-53 in the championship game. Our number one story on the Countdown: Senators Obama and McCain actually released their tournament picks -- brackets -- to reporters. Is there risk here?
