Ah, now the race was "close." Or, the media's latest version of reality.

For many weeks, things were hopeless for Hillary, the party-destroying, power-mad, win-at-all-costs candidate who simply had to be stopped for the good of the country, even if it meant calling in Rodan and Godzilla.

Now, suddenly, the race was "close." That's the word the MSNBC talkers are employing--close. So how did history change so suddenly and dramatically? How does a primary election go from no hope for Hillary to a close battle? People ought to be asking this question to the media--especially Teeth Doberman and Jonathan Alter-the-Facts. But they aren't. And they won't.

Let's face it--as much as people go on about never, ever trusting the press, the reality is that they hew to its line religiously--at least when they like what they're hearing. Progressives, moderates, conservatives--doesn't matter. People take what they like and condemn the rest. Every anti-Hillary sentiment I've encountered in cyberspace has been straight out of the TV Talkers' Handbook. Coincidence? Hardly.

Take, for instance, the media cliche that Hillary and her supporters have changed the rules at every turn. Let's not even deal with the question of how we'd have gotten away with such a scam--rather, let's look at some basic facts. To win the primary election, a candidate has to gain a set number of regular/pledged/elected delegate votes. When all was said and decided, that count was 2118. Were superdelegate votes included in that count? No, not according to the rules. But yes, according to the media.

So, um... who changed the rules?

Don't take my word for it--look it up. Two sources I found helpful were The Congressional Quarterly Weekly and The New York Times, but you can find the info nearly anyplace.

No, neither candidate won the 2118 votes. That's where and when the superdelegates were supposed to come in--AFTER the primary was over. Not during. The primary election was a tie in that neither Hill nor Barack won the nomination. That's when the superdelegates, as a body, were supposed to step in, look at the post-primary metrics, and make a decision. Chief among those post-primary numbers? The popular vote.

No rules were changed, at least not by Hill and her fans. Ditto for the role of the superdelegates, ditto for the fact that SD input is, by definition, post-primary. Those rules were in place long before we started griping about media coverage.

Simply put, the pro-Obama forces didn't want the primary ending without Obama topping 2118 votes, even if it meant a premature piling-on of SD votes. They knew that, so long as there was the appearance of a victory, there was a victory. They knew that folks like me would be branded poor losers (and worse) if we dared to suggest that the media had covered things dishonestly. (Gosh--imagine that. The press, lying! Every good progressive knows that the press never lies.)

I'm told that it's time to move on, that Obama won, that I need to suck up and face the facts. Kind of like 2000 all over again, no? Only this time, it's happening within the party.

Progress? Change? Maybe. The type we need? Hardly.