You have to give Hillary Clinton's team credit for one thing: they have masterfully played the perception game. It might have been all smoke and mirrors, but they have done their job of keeping people confused and distracted them from what really matters.

The reality is that: 1. She has no chance of beating Barack Obama. 2. She has had no chance of beating Barack Obama for a long time now. 3. Most importantly, she has deluded people into thinking her chances of winning the nomination were improving as they were getting dramatically worse.

As everyone is concentrating on the loathsome things that Rev. Hagee has said about New Orleans, or gay people, or Muslims, or Catholics, his more radical views on the poor and his encouragement of violence in Christianity has been overlooked.

Get a load of the hateful things Reverend Hagee had to say on those issues in the video below:

The latest right-wing game is to pin controversial figures, who might have said or done anything objectionable at any point in their lifetimes, to Barack Obama. Then make him apologize for them. Then make him denounce and reject them. And then say he hasn't done enough to "distance" himself from them.

It could be his pastor, it could be his neighbor, it could be someone he served on a board with, it could be someone who donated to him, it could be someone who gave him an unsolicited endorsement (Louis Farrakhan) or it can just simply be someone who is black (Harry Belafonte).

Hillary Clinton supporters seem to have become the equivalent of global warming deniers in Democratic politics. If facts don't suit your argument, insist on the opposite. And even more importantly, insist that your non-facts get at least 50% of the coverage.

The Clinton team is now trying to make the specious argument that she is winning in the popular vote. The first problem with that argument is that it's not true. Obama still leads by over 500,000 votes. The second problem is that they try to include states like Michigan and Florida where all sides agreed not to campaign or have their delegates counted. Hillary Clinton's flip-flop on these states is even more absurd given that Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan.

First of all, you have to give Hillary Clinton a ton of credit. Whether you agree with the way she has run the campaign or not, she is a fighter and no matter what happens she keeps getting back up.

Her campaign theme song should definitely be "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor. I'm surprised they haven't used that on the campaign trail yet (it would also help because it's a rallying cry for women everywhere - if you don't believe me, just play it at any bar or club and see how the women in there react).

I come away from each of these primary nights shaking my head at how well she has sprung back up. You do have to confess there is a certain Rocky quality to her campaign (they should also play "Eye of the Tiger" at campaign stops to rally the men).

ABC has been hiding behind the shell of "we were just asking tough questions" in response to their questionable performance in the Pennsylvania debate. But to see how transparently false that claim is you only have to think about this "tough" question: When did you stop beating your wife?

Now, that's a tough question, partly because it is grossly unfair, partly because it's an ugly insinuation and partly because it's structured in a way where there is no good answer. That doesn't make it a good question.

Nobody is asking ABC or anyone else to play patty-cakes with these nominees. In fact, I don't think they ask nearly tough enough questions of the Republicans, or the Democrats.

Every election cycle the Republicans play the same game of distraction. They want to distract people from what they have done, so they turn the focus on to what their opponents said, or what someone who can nominally be linked to their opponents said.

And every year, the press dutifully plays along.

The ABC debate last night might have been the most egregious example because it seemed like it was the only thing they asked about, but the whole election so far has been littered with these false controversies. All of this plays exactly into the hands of the Republicans. Don't worry about what we did to this country, look away, instead spend all your time getting angry about what someone said.

I feel like asking the same question about elitists that Jim Mora once famously asked about the playoffs. Elitists?! Elitists?! We're talking about elitists?!

The Clinton and McCain families both have over $100 million. Barack Obama has a father from Kenya and mother from Kansas. Who are they kidding about elitism?

I don't think money is necessarily the determinative factor in whether you're an elitist or not. And I think the Clintons did work their way up in this world. But to claim that a guy like Obama who built his success completely on his own and from the bottom up is an elitist is beyond ridiculous. In fact, it's worse; it's Republican.

Yesterday on our show I talked about the two central myths of the Iraq War:

1. There is no central government of Iraq who can take over as soon as we leave and run a peaceful, stable and flourishing Iraq.

2. More time in Iraq is not going to produce any more gains for us because we're headed in the wrong direction. More time might help if you're headed in the right direction, but only hurts your cause if you're going the wrong way.

Normally, I would write about this, but I think I explained it best yesterday on the show. Think about the business analogy at the end of this video -- under any other circumstance, we would never give more time and money for a failing enterprise like this:

Someone should ask General Petraeus today why he is working so hard to help Iran. This is not to suggest he is some sort of enemy of the state. I suppose he is following orders, but why doesn't he question his wildly counterproductive and conflicting orders?

I hear him bemoaning Iranian influence in Iraq all the time. Yet, no one has helped Iran more inside Iraq than he has. We have lent the full force of our military might to the political faction and Shiite militia most closely associated with Iran.

Granted there aren't a lot of good guys in the different Iraqi militias (on the other hand, they don't have much reason to think we're swell, either). But why have we decided to back the most pro-Iranian militia in the whole country?

Throughout the primaries there has been a credulous discussion about the different reasons why Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq War authorization bill. Senator Clinton has said that she thought the president should have the authority to threaten force so he would have better negotiation leverage. Senator Obama has said she showed poor judgment in trusting President Bush to use that authority wisely.

Neither one of these things is true. Let's get real. She voted for the Iraq War because she thought it was in her political interest. I'm not one to think that every wink and nod of Senator Clinton is a meticulously thought out political strategy. But come on, this isn't a laugh here or a tear there - this was the biggest political vote of their careers. Did they take politics into consideration? Of course!!!!

Who is the Iraqi Army? That seems like a strange question. What do I mean?

The Bush administration claims the Iraqi Army is a unified force of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds who fight together for the centralized government of Iraq. That's complete nonsense.

In fact, the different divisions of the army are segregated by sect. The so-called Iraqi Army fighting in the south right now is mainly the Badr Corps. This is a rival Shiite militia to Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

The Badr Corps is connected to the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. Don't get freaked out, they're theoretically the good guys. Well, at least they are the largest political party in Iraq and the ones we are supporting. Here's the problem -- they're not the good guys at all. They ran death squads and torture chambers out of the Interior Ministry throughout the period of ethnic cleansing in Iraq.

The latest talking point for Hillary Clinton is this race is still early in the process and primaries from previous years were decided much later in the year. She recently told Time, as well almost every other interviewer she's talked to, "I remind a lot of people that my husband didn't formally wrap up the nomination until June."

The point is supposed to be that this race isn't over. They're just getting started. Give her more time. Here's the problem, that isn't really true.

In 1992, the year Bill Clinton won the nomination she's alluding to, the primaries started significantly later than they did in 2008. Iowa was on January 3rd this year and on February 10th in 1992 (remember, this year we'd already had Super Tuesday by Feb. 5th). New Hampshire was on January 8th in 2008 and February 18th in 1992. Super Tuesday was on Feb. 5th this year and was on March 10th in 1992 (we'd already had the so-called second Super Tuesday in Ohio and Texas by this date in 2008).

The Politico laid it out very clearly yesterday - and solidified what we've known for weeks - this race is over. Obama has the nomination.

Even Hillary Clinton's own campaign admits it! Politico reports, "One important Clinton adviser estimated to Politico privately that she has no more than a 10 percent chance of winning her race against Barack Obama, an appraisal that was echoed by other operatives. In other words: The notion of the Democratic contest being a dramatic cliffhanger is a game of make-believe."

Rudy Giuliani's priest has been accused in grand jury proceedings of molesting several children and covering up the molestation of others. Giuliani would not disavow him on the campaign trail and still works with him.

Mitt Romney was part of a church that did not view black Americans as equals and actively discriminated against them. He stayed with that church all the way into his early thirties, until they were finally forced to change their policies to come into compliance with civil rights legislation. Romney never disavowed his church back then or now. He said he was proud of the faith of his fathers.

Jerry Falwell said America had 9/11 coming because we tolerated gays, feminists and liberals. It was our fault. Our chickens had come home to roost, if you will. John McCain proudly received his support and even spoke at his university's commencement.

For as long as I have been alive Republicans have been saying that government hand-outs make people lazy and give them all the wrong incentives. Instead the better approach is for people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

So, now when the financial industry is in trouble because they took too much risk in trying to get too rich too quick, I'd like to ask one question -- what happened to the bootstraps?

Why didn't the Fed toss Bear Stearns a couple of bootstraps and tell them to piss off? Oh wait, could it be that Republican ideology only applies to the poor and the middle class? If you have a problem in your life that you need some temporary help with, you're out of luck. But if a massive company needs that same help, well, of course, the government is going to step in. It would be irresponsible not to!

The Republicans have made a high art out of whining to the refs for the last several decades. It goes something like this: "The media is liberal. They hate us. They won't be fair to us. Boo hoo. You better not write anything bad about us otherwise you prove that you are liberal and unfair."

And the media has swallowed it whole. They are so careful about what they say about Republicans because they are scared to death of what the Republicans are going to say about them.

On the other hand, the press can say anything they want about Democrats and there are never any repercussions. So, they feel free to hammer away at one party while tip-toeing around the other.

First of all, let's be clear on one thing -- this race is over. Barack Obama has won. Hillary Clinton has lost. Obama's pledged delegate lead is insurmountable. He leads by about 150 delegates in that category. Hillary Clinton cannot and will not catch up to him.

Clinton's supposed big win last Tuesday amounted to a measly 6 to 7 delegate pick up. If that's a big win, then she needs approximately 20 more of those to get competitive. Obama might have picked up more delegates than that in Mississippi alone last night. He picked up twice as many delegates as that in South Carolina alone.

On a press call today, the Clinton camp insisted that Senator Obama had an identical voting record in the Senate as Senator Clinton. Then, they emphatically stated what an abysmal record Senator Obama had in acting to end the Iraq War.

Unfortunately, they didn't take a follow-up question on this issue, but the follow-up is obvious: So, are you admitting that Senator Clinton has a terrible voting record on Iraq?

Perhaps the answer is as obvious as the question. Of course, she does. Her campaign is simply trying to mitigate the damage done by her awful record of opposing President Bush on Iraq by claiming that Obama is just as bad a leader as she is. How comforting.

Now that the Republican race is over, our Producer, Jayar Jackson, put together a "One Shining Moment" tribute to their goofiest moments in the primaries. Watch it here:

Watch Young Turks You Tube Channel Here

John McCain was warmly endorsed by Rev. Hagee this past week. McCain said he was "very honored" and "very proud" of the endorsement.

Reverend Hagee is a Class A kook. Stark raving mad. He believes someone will unite the whole world together and bring peace to everyone -- and that person is the Anti-Christ. Yeah, God forbid we should have peace. So, Hagee prefers war instead.

He wants to preemptively strike Iran to start the festivities. So, will this bring peace later at least? No, exactly the opposite, it will bring Armageddon. Then nearly everyone will die -- which, of course, is a great thing because Biblical prophecy will be fulfilled and the few people who agree with John Hagee will all be saved and laughing their ass off in heaven. And the rest of us will be dead. Killed by Rev. Hagee's righteous God.

John McCain was born in Panama. Arnold Schwarzenegger was born in Austria. I was born in Turkey. Article II of the Constitution clearly states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President." (emphasis added)

End of the question, right? None of us can be president of the United States of America.

Here are the slogans Hillary Clinton should have based her campaign on:

• Hillary Clinton: Battle-tested
• I have scars because I've been in the fight
• We've got a fight on our hands and I'm the fighter you need in your corner
• Actions speak louder than words (she has briefly used this one)
• I've been taking the fight to the bad guys for the last 35 years
• I have hope born of experience, a hope we can achieve

One of Hillary Clinton's main problems was that Barack Obama was so damn likable. They should have Karl Roved him by turning his biggest asset into his biggest disadvantage (as they did to John Kerry's service in Vietnam).

The John McCain-Vicki Iseman story is not the first article the New York Times has held back for political reasons. They have now done this on at least three occasions:

1. The original FISA story on how the Bush administration was not getting warrants for wiretaps inside the United States.
2. The original story in 2004 that showed Osama bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan, not Afghanistan.
3. The McCain-Iseman story.

We had James Risen, the writer of the first two stories on our show back in 2005 and he admitted that they held the Bin Laden story until after the 2004 election because the New York Times didn't want to "get caught up in the politics of it."

For most of this primary race, the Associated Press has been publishing a misleading delegate count. I don't think they have bad intent in doing this and they are trying to be as accurate as possible, but when they keep reporting the overall delegate count - including super delegates - they are giving a false sense of the race.

Counting the super delegates now is misleading for two important reasons. First, they can and often do change their minds. Just last week at least three super delegates left the Clinton camp and went over to Obama. Second, at this point, it appears unlikely that they will vote against the interests of the Democratic voters, so their endorsements do not indicate how they will actually cast their ballots at the convention.