Worst. Strategist. Ever.

From TIME's "The Five Mistakes Clinton Made":

2. She didn't master the rules
Clinton picked people for her team primarily for their loyalty to her, instead of their mastery of the game. That became abundantly clear in a strategy session last year, according to two people who were there. As aides looked over the campaign calendar, chief strategist Mark Penn confidently predicted that an early win in California would put her over the top because she would pick up all the state's 370 delegates. It sounded smart, but as every high school civics student now knows, Penn was wrong: Democrats, unlike the Republicans, apportion their delegates according to vote totals, rather than allowing any state to award them winner-take-all. Sitting nearby, veteran Democratic insider Harold M. Ickes, who had helped write those rules, was horrified — and let Penn know it. "How can it possibly be," Ickes asked, "that the much vaunted chief strategist doesn't understand proportional allocation?" And yet the strategy remained the same, with the campaign making its bet on big-state victories. Even now, it can seem as if they don't get it. Both Bill and Hillary have noted plaintively that if Democrats had the same winner-take-all rules as Republicans, she'd be the nominee.

Karen Tumulty must have stayed up all night thinking of four other mistakes not directly attributable to Penn. That guy is a $10 million moron. The only person more incompetent than Mark Penn is the person who hired him...and then continued to stick with him...

Worst. Cops. Ever.

This is ridiculous almost to the point of unbelievability. I kept waiting for the Onion News Network anchor to come on. If Michael "Heckuva Job" Brown ran the Minsk Road Police...



[h/t The Agitator]

WTF?

This seems absolutely outrageous to me...

Secret Service Ordered End to Gun Checks at Obama Rally

NEW YORK The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported late Thursday that security details at Barack Obama's rally in Dallas (of all places) on Wednesday "stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena.

"The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security," reported the paper's Jack Douglas, Jr. More than 10 days remain until the Texas primary and a key vote for president.

"Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence, head of the Police Department's homeland security and special operations divisions, said the order -- apparently made by the U.S. Secret Service -- was meant to speed up the long lines outside and fill the arena's vacant seats before Obama came on. '"Sure,' said Lawrence, when asked if he was concerned by the great number of people who had gotten into the building without being checked. But, he added, the turnout of more than 17,000 people seemed to be a 'friendly crowd.'"

The Secret Service did not return a call from the Star-Telegram seeking comment.

Are you fucking kidding me? And in Dallas for crissakes?!?

[via TPM's CAmpaign Wire]