Peggy Noonan blasts today’s pathetic Republican Party. She’s not saying anything new. She just has a way with words, and her essay sums up the problems nicely.

These problems, however, have been apparent for years, and even Peggy has been late to the party. In Kansas in 2006, old Republicans bolted from the party and won seats as Democrats.

The Republicans deserve to get crushed in the fall. If that happens, it will be the best possible result for the party (and the country).

The fall campaign is underway. Getting Edwards to endorse has less to do with wrapping up the nomination and more to do with uniting the party for the general election.

Hillary Clinton won big tonight in West Virginia, demonstrating the Obama has plenty of work to do in that part of the country, but she knows it’s over. She argued her case again tonight, but she gave a very classy and gracious speech. She will play this out, at least through next week but probably through all the primaries, but it looks like she will try to make a classy exit.

Obama is already starting to pull ahead of McCain in the polls. If Hillary follows through, supports Obama, gives a classy convention speech and then works hard to unite the party, the Dems will be in great shape in the fall.

This will help McCain minimize the damage done by his enthusiastic courting of Hagee in getting his endorsement. Bill Donahue has accepted the endorsement, clearing the way for him to support McCain in the fall. Democrats will still bring this up, especially if McCain raises the Wright issue, but this will quiet Donahue and other Catholic commentators.

This is hilarious!

Check out more international ads using Bush.

Classic quote from a voter in West Virginia:

Like most people in Mingo County, West Virginia, Leonard Simpson is a lifelong Democrat. But given a choice between Barack Obama and John McCain in November, the 67-year-old retired coalminer would vote Republican.

“I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife’s an atheist,” said Mr Simpson, drawing on a cigarette outside the fire station in Williamson, a coalmining town of 3,400 people surrounded by lush wooded hillsides.

Tuesday will be an ugly day for Obama. Fortunately, it really doesn’t matter, but it will present yet another opportunity for Hillary to pontificate about race.

Vulgar and cynical. It’s amazing how low Hillary will go. She will go down as one of the most classless politicians in American history.

Obama is gearing up for the fall, as he goes after McCain regarding Hamas.

Obama said he was offended when McCain said last month, “It’s very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president.”

“I think it’s disappointing because John McCain always says, ‘Well, I’m not going to run that kind of politics,’ and then to engage in that kind of smear I think is unfortunate, particularly since my policy on Hamas has been no different than his,” Obama said.

“And so for him to toss out comments like that, I think, is an example of him losing his bearings as he pursues this nomination.”

“Losing his bearings.” I love that line.

Fred Barnes makes a persuasive case.

I’m not a big fan of Rendell, but he would deliver Pennsylvania.

Obama starts the process of party unification in his speech. Hillary makes similar comments, though she took some shots as well.

We’ll see what happens after we get the final numbers in Indiana.

About 25% of the voting is early voting, and polls suggest these voters went big for Obama.

As everyone knows, North Carolina is critical. Obama is supposed to win there, and Hillary’s only real chance is to beat Obama in a state where he is expected to win. She needs to change the dynamic of the race. Obama, on the other hands, wins with a split between Indiana and North Carolina.

If Obama takes care of business in North Carolina, expect to see a significant number of superdelegates annoucing their support for Obama.

I think Hillary miscalculated with the gas tax holiday. Sure, many voters will like this, but I suspect many independents will not. Also, she alienated many members of Congress who oppose this issue and were not happy when she threatened to bring this to a vote. Her “with us or against” us rhetoric rubbed some officials the wrong way. I suspect that if Obama wins North Carolina, Hillary’s pandering on the gas tax will give superdelegates another reason to come out against her.

John McCain has been flying under the radar as the Democrats grab the headlines, but more news organizations are paying attention to the Hagee story and his anti-Catholic remarks.

Both the Senate race and the presidential race are closer than one might expect.

She won’t listen to economists.

This is disgusting.

A musician who was denied a liver transplant because he used marijuana with medical approval under Washington state law to ease the symptoms of advanced hepatitis C died Thursday.

The death of Timothy Garon, 56, at Bailey-Boushay House, an intensive care nursing center was confirmed to The Associated Press by his lawyer, Douglas Hiatt, and Alisha Mark, a spokeswoman for Virginia Mason Medical Center, which operates Bailey-Boushay.

Dr. Brad Roter, the physician who authorized Garon to smoke pot to alleviate for nausea and abdominal pain and to stimulate his appetite, said he did not know it would be such a hurdle if Garon were to need a transplant.

The case has highlighted a new ethical consideration for those allocating organs for transplant, especially in the dozen states that have medical marijuana laws: When dying patients need a transplant, should it be held against them if they’ve used pot with a doctor’s blessing?

Garon died a week after his doctor told him a University of Washington Medical Center committee had again denied him a spot on the liver transplant list because of his use of marijuana, although it was authorized under Washington state law.

“He said I’m going to die with such conviction,” Garon told an AP reporter at the time. “I’m not angry, I’m not mad, I’m just confused.”

Michael Bloomberg chimes in on the latest pander from Clinton and McCain.

Tom Friedman is even tougher on these lame politicians.

It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away. Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country.

When the summer is over, we will have increased our debt to China, increased our transfer of wealth to Saudi Arabia and increased our contribution to global warming for our kids to inherit.

Barack Obama will spend more on education, but he stresses that none of this will matter if parents don’t do their job of parenting.

Far left liberals do not speak about personal responsibility like this. Those who want to paint him as an extreme liberal will be very disapppointed.