I'm working today and will return for the results from West Virginia's primary.

Some things to read today:

• The Washington Post's continuing series, Careless Detention by Dana Priest and Amy Goldstein on the merciless and inadequate health care provided to immigrant detainees. Today's segment is on errors in psychiatric diagnoses and the drugs administered, and how gaps in the system resulted in suicides.

• Baze v. Rees, Fearing Too Much Justice, by Elisabeth Semel, director of the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Lis and I co-chaired the NACDL Legislative Committee together for years in the '90's and she is one of the smartest and most committed people I know.

• The defense continues its closing argument in the Tony Rezko Chicago corruption trial.

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The Hillary Clinton campaign sent out a memo today on why West Virginia's primary matters.

Shorter version: Obama may not have spent much time in West Virginia but he threw an awful lot of resources at it.

Some quotes below, but the link takes you to the full memo.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will be in the U.S. Senate today to vote on a few bills. Why? MSNBC's Chuck Todd says it's to court the labor vote.

The bill at issue is "a procedural vote allowing state and local first responders collective bargaining rights."

A military judge today dismissed the charges against Guantanamo detainee Mohammed al-Qahtani. The Pentagon had claimed al-Qahtani was the "20th hijacker" for 9/11. He had been subjected to harsh interrogation techniques.

The charges against five other detainees, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were approved. They face a possible death penalty.

Here are some of the techniques used on al-Qahtani, from the interrogators' log : [More...]

This is a hilarious development:

Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson, a Democratic convention delegate pledged to support Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, said yesterday that he thinks Sen. Barack Obama has "in a real sense" won the Democratic nomination and that he now plans to support Obama at the August convention.

Heh. Now it seems to me the Obama camp needed to tell this fellow he should not do that. But they did not:

David Plouffe just . . . mentioned that the Clinton Campaign has said that pledged delegates could switch. He said their focus is on reaching 2025 total delegates and that it is in reach.

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E.J. Dionne points out that while Barack Obama's problem with white working class voters is more acute than normal, this is a Democratic problem, not just an Obama problem:

Cartoonists and satirists mocked Hillary Clinton's incarnation as a fighter for blue-collar voters. Yet those who know her well think the fighting Hillary is closer to her self-image -- as someone who has had to overcome many blows in life -- than the inevitable nominee who wove a web of entitlement around herself and ran on experience, much of which was derivative of her husband's.

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Hillary Clinton is expected to take a massive victory in West Virginia tonight and the Media will be forced to suppress a yawn. They have declared the race over and therefore this would upset their narrative. On NBC at the least, the storyline will be WWTBQ (See Corrente).

I believe the storyline should be the one I have been discussing for days, how can Obama do better with white working class voters. There are thing he can do to improve his performance with that demo. I won't be holding my breath that the Media will find that an interesting issue to discuss. The evilness of Hillary Clinton will be the subject of the night as it is most nights for the Media. I really wonder what they will talk and write about if and when Clinton is out of the race. They have nothing to say about either Obama or McCain. Seriously. [More...]

and

Two of my favorite songs from the Vietnam protest days. A third is below the fold. For those of you too young to remember the war in Vietnam, this BBC series is excellent. At the bottom of the first page are links to the next segments.

If you weren't around here earlier today, this and this is what tonight's late post relates to. [More...]

A new Survey USA Poll in Kentucky came out today. It's Hillary 62%, Barack Obama 30%.

If West Virginia is a convincing win tomorrow and Kentucky goes big for Hillary, the media says it won't matter. I'm hoping they are wrong. So are millions of other Democrats who believe Hillary Clinton is the best candidate.

While Big Tent Democrat has been sold on a unity ticket for months, I am not, regardless of who is on top of the ticket. I don't think they have a better chance of retaking the White House in November together. I think together they will drive Republicans and conservatives out in force. It's not a balanced ticket.

I also don't want to see a joint ticket because I think Hillary Clinton would make a great President, and I don't think she ever will get the chance if she starts off as Vice President under Obama for 8 years. [More...]

John Edwards was just on Larry King and let me tell you I am so impressed with the way he is handling himself. Here is a Democrat that realizes how important having a unified Democratic Party is for November. He has been gracious and complimentary to both candidates. Just what all the Party Elders should be doing.

But Edwards said something that really struck me - Hillary Clinton has become a terrific candidate, just about the time that her chances for winning the nomination are dimming. The irony hurts, especially for Clinton supporters I imagine. A candidate is responsible for his or her campaign of course and Hillary Clinton is responsible for hiring Mark Penn, clearly her biggest mistake. But there can be no doubt that Hillary Clinton is now a terrific candidate, much better than I ever imagined she could be.

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A new ABC News/Washington Post poll finds:

Pushing back against political punditry, more than six in 10 Democrats say there's no rush for Hillary Clinton to leave the presidential race even as Barack Obama consolidates his support for the nomination and scores solidly in general-election tests.

Despite Obama's advantage in delegates and popular vote, 64 percent of Democrats in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say Clinton should remain in the race. Even among Obama's supporters, 42 percent say so.

Full poll results are here (pdf). Big Tent Democrat's take on the poll is here.

This is a wonderful finding from an ABC/WaPo poll:

Clinton continues as the preferred choice as Obama's running mate, with 39 percent of Democrats saying they'd like him to pick her if he's the nominee. That peaks at 59 percent of African-Americans, 47 percent of Clinton supporters and 42 percent of women (vs. 34 percent of men).

There's also an indication that Clinton on the ticket would be a slight net plus in the general election: Among all Americans, more say having her run with Obama would make them more likely to vote Democratic (25 percent) than to vote Republican (18 percent). The rest (54 percent) say it wouldn't make a difference in their choice.

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