Clinton: I’m relentlessly middlebrow, honest!

Her 41 supermarket moment? As if I needed another reason not to vote Clinton: Though she may knock back boilermakers like us regular joes, the Senator has in fact never heard of Red Bull, the fantabulously addictive breakfast beverage which more often than not constitutes the best moment of my day. (This also means Clinton has lost another excuse for voicing her obliteration-happy nuclear ambitions last week…It wasn’t the taurine talking.)

In other key findings: “Her fantasy date would be with President Abraham Lincoln [to which Sybil says back off!] She refused to choose between comedians Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, said she likes both wine and beer, and wouldn’t select either ‘American Idol’ or ‘Dancing With the Stars’; she said her mother — who lives with the Clintons — keeps her up to speed on both programs.” (The answers, as everyone not running for office knows, is Fey, beer, and neither — both are garbage, not that I’d expect someone who prefers Grey’s Anatomy to The Wire (as per Obama) and spends her free time trying to ban Grand Theft Auto to pick up on that.)

Haaappppy Birrrrrthday, Mein Fuhrer…

You can’t make this sort of thing up. While Senators Obama and Clinton traverse the Hoosier state for votes, local GOP congressional candidate and all-around right-wing freakshow Tony Zirkle actually makes a campaign stop to laud Hitler’s birthday. “‘I’ll speak before any group that invites me,’ Zirkle said Monday. ‘I’ve spoken on an African-American radio station in Atlanta.‘” Uh…yeah. As a THND commenter noted, it’s that sparkly Happy Birthday banner on the table that really pushes the thing into high comedy.

Way Down in the Homer. | Deus Ex Cylonica.

Via What’s Alan Watching?, and much like these Battlestar Galactica images from two years ago, David Simon’s Baltimore goes Springfield. (That’s McNulty & Bunk down at the tracks above, but you probably already figured that out.)

Speaking of BSG, does anyone else feel like Battlestar is on the verge of entering late-season X-Files territory at this point? (Or as Starbuck (and MC Hammer) might screech, WE’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!!!) I was never sold on the Watchtower Four or all the Vision Questing at the end of Season 3, but figured i’d see where the show goes thereafter…maybe the Cylons really do have a plan. But this season to me, the Cylon civil war notwithstanding, has seemed mostly meandering and purposeless, and last episode (particularly the Tigh-Ellen-Six stuff) bordered on incoherent and self-parodying. I’m not giving up on Galactica just yet, but the show is definitely starting to lose me.

Smudged Crystal | Concerning Hobbit. | Hulk Out.

Indiana is May 6. Indiana Jones is May 22. And, while WB’s cadre of lawyers try to lock down various versions of the Dark Knight trailer, the new Kramerized Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull trailer has also popped up online. I’m still of 2 minds about Indy 4. It could be a great throwback, it could be Attack of the Clones…but at least we only have to wait a few weeks to know the score. (In fact, Indy IV will close out four weeks of Fanboy May(hem), beginning tomorrow with Iron Man, followed by Speed Racer (5/9) and Prince Caspian (5/16).

Regarding much-anticipated projects further down the pike, Guillermo del Toro has been confirmed for The Hobbit, as has Ian McKellen. “‘Yes, it’s true,’ he said. ‘I spoke to Guillermo in the very room that Peter Jackson offered me the part and he confirmed that I would be reprising the role. Obviously, it’s not a part that you turn down, I loved playing Gandalf.’” I’m obviously hugely excited for this project, but, still…that second filler movie attached to The Hobbit sounds like it could end up being a colossally bad idea.

Update: Also out today, Edward Norton wrestles with the angry, powerful alpha male inside him in the new trailer for Louis Leterrier’s Incredible Hulk. Pfff…Tyler could still take him in a fight.

But two Wrongs don’t make a Wright.

“The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church. They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs. And if Reverend Wright thinks that that’s political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn’t know me very well. And based on his remarks yesterday, well, I might not know him as well as I thought, either.” After an unrepentant Jeremiah Wright ratcheted up the heat again at the National Press Club yesterday, thus bringing the punditariat to a full boil, an “outraged” and “saddened” Sen. Obama definitively cuts Wright loose.

A bit depressing that this had to go down, but, at this point, Obama really didn’t have much choice. (Wright was practically begging for it, what with promoting the AIDS and Farrakhan stuff anew yesterday.) So, hopefully this helps bring an end to the sad diversion that was the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Now, perhaps we can move on to other matters, such as the Rev. John Hagee and the “Strangelovian” obliteration of Iran

Update: While we all mull the fallout from Wrightgate II, consider this: Sen. Obama picked up two more superdelegates today, Rep. Ben Chandler of Kentucky and DNC member Richard Machachek of Iowa. I believe that puts the post-PA total at 6 for Obama, 2 for Clinton, meaning Sen. Clinton is now a full 10 behind where she needs to be to stay “alive.”

Update 2: Count three more supers for Clinton, and now three more for Sen. Obama. The new post-PA tally: 9 for Obama, 5 for Clinton, meaning Clinton is down 13 from her needed mark.

It’s all part of the plan.

Along with a slew of new posters (see also the snazzy 9/11ish one at Quiddity), The Dark Knight begins its trailer rollout today with — of course — another worldwide Joker-run scavenger hunt. (I for one am loving the confluence of my interests that is Jokerized dead-presidents.) In any case, once we budding fanboy detectives run the info through the Batcomputer and get to the bottom of it all, I’ll post the new trailer here…

Update: After the scavenger hunt and some anagram work and duck-shooting, it seems the trailer will be here…next Sunday. (Presumably, it premieres before Iron Man on Friday.) Sunday? Now, that wasn’t very nice.

Update 2: “This city deserves a better class of criminal, and I’m going to give it to them.” In pure Joker fashion, it’s been Kramerized and Youtubed regardless. Extremely poor quality, but this’ll do until the trouble gets here. (I could do without the post-title goofiness, to be honest, but Heath’s Joker still seems scarily spot-on.) Update 3: While bootlegs of the clip keep getting shut down (if you haven’t caught it yet, it’s still up here at io9), the “Jokerized” version of the trailer, handed out to raffle winners in the viral game, is nevertheless now on the tubes.

Bada-Bingaman | Supers, then and now.

To make progress, we must rise above the partisanship and the issues that divide us to find common ground. We must move the country in a dramatically new direction. I strongly believe Barack Obama is best positioned to lead the nation in that new direction.” Along with Roger Waters and the Pink Floyd pig, Sen. Obama picks up another Senate super in New Mexico’s Jeff Bingaman, thus putting him in the lead among his and Sen. Clinton’s colleagues. Update: Clinton counters with NC Governor Mike Easley.

Meanwhile, over the weekend Matt Drudge ventured into the Wayback Machine to examine superdelegates’ issues…with Bill Clinton in 1992. “‘The voters haven’t embraced Clinton, so I don’t see any reason why I should endorse him,’ Mr. Eckart said. ‘Look at the exit polls. People have terrible doubts about this guy, and we’re talking about Democrats.’” Cut to 2008, where, thanks to his recent transgressions, undeclared supers — particularly African-American supers like my old rep, Jim Clyburn — still don’t think much of the man. “How do you play the race card on the ex-president of the United States? How do you do it? I would like to know how that’s done and who they [are]. And I’d like to see these memos he’s talking about. That’s what’s so bizarre about this,’ Clyburn said“. (Nor, it seems, is Pres. Clinton a fan of Obama, but that’s not really surprising at this point, is it?)

Wright and Wrong.

“I feel that those citizens who say that have never heard my sermons, nor do they know me. They are unfair accusations taken from sound bites…I served six years in the military. Does that make me patriotic? How many years did Cheney serve?” I haven’t watched the Sunday shows yet, but, if today’s press is any indication, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is the big story in the news, after he delivered remarks in several venues aimed at defending himself against the recent media throng, as well as horrifying attempts by the like of George Stephanopoulos to McCarthify him on national television. (As I said here, we seem to have entirely skipped the rails when kindly ole Mike Huckabee is the biggest voice for tolerance and historical understanding in the conversation.)

At any rate, the return of Obama’s Angry Black Preacher-Man prompted tut-tuts of electoral worry from Clinton-leaning concern trolls like like Salon‘s Joan Walsh, and the usual waiting for the other-shoe-to-drop from breathless political blogs like War Room and Ben Smith. What I haven’t seen yet today, amid all the puttering from the press on the subject of Wright, is any attempt to put the Reverend’s remarks in context of this weekend’s highly dubious acquittal in the Sean Bell case. To wit, New York City cops shoot an unarmed black man and his friends 50 times and end up getting off for it, and, outside of Harlem, there’s barely a shrug, including in the news media. Meanwhile, when it comes to anything and everything involving the fates of Natalee Holloway, Laci Peterson, and any other white damsel in distress, the press drone on about it endlessly, funnelling info to us months or even years after the cases have gone cold. But, as they say, this ain’t Aruba, b**ch.

Is Rev. Wright angry? At this point, and as this weekend’s fiasco makes clear, he has every right to be. Perhaps the press and the punditocracy could investigate more thoroughly why black America may be less inclined to think well of our nation at times, rather than working themselves into yet another holier-than-thou froth about occasional intemperate remarks, and/or endlessly fretting about their potential impact on the electoral whims of the white working class. God forbid these media asshats break out of their echo chamber bubble once in awhile and do some honest-to-goodness reporting. Heck, I’d be happy just to see a few of ’em think for themselves.

Weathermen Blowback. | Mr. Wu.

“In an interview yesterday, Hillary — whose connection to President Clinton’s 2001 sentence commutations for two members of the Weather Underground has become an issue since she tried to raise questions about Obama’s acquaintance with another ex-Weatherman — told ‘Inside Edition’ that she ‘didn’t know anything about’ the 2001 clemency case…If it’s true, it means that she got the worst briefings in the world when she was running for Senate in 2000 and the clemency issue was hot in Rockland County, and it means that Chuck Schumer didn’t even bother to mention the issue to his fellow NY senator-elect/ First Lady after promising the widows of two dead cops to fight against one of the clemencies.” Following her recent attempt to make hay from the Weathermen, Sen. Clinton gets caught in another obvious lie. Oops.

Meanwhile, following on the two he picked up yesterday, Sen. Obama scores another superdelegate in Oregon rep David Wu. “‘We need new policies both at home and abroad,’ Wu said in a statement. ‘Like Americans, the international community wants to see real change in America and I believe that Senator Obama embodies that change.’” As you probably know, Sen. Clinton needs the superdelegates to break 2-1 her way from now herein for the comeback math to make any sense at all. So, since Pennsylvania (1 for Clinton, 3 for Obama), she’s already 5 down on where she needs to be.