From The “If McCain Did This” Files  —  Obama, below, is tired, nothing more.  —  But if John McCain did this — if he mistakenly said he'd visited 57 states — the media would be all up in his grill, accusing him of a senior moment.  Just saying....

Barack Obama sacks adviser over talks with Hamas  —  One of Barack Obama's Middle East policy advisers disclosed today that he had held meetings with the militant Palestinian group Hamas - prompting the likely Democratic nominee to sever all links with him.  —  Robert Malley told The Times …

NMI EXCLUSIVE: Count one more superdelegate for Barack Obama  —  New Mexico Democratic superdelegate Laurie Weahkee announced today she's backing Barack Obama.  —  SANTA FE — If Sen. Barack Obama needs a mere 170 more delegate votes to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination outright, he just got one vote closer.

Lanny Davis on CNN primary night: ‘Worst experience I ever had on television’  —  When Clinton supporter Lanny Davis appeared on CNN during primary night, shortly before 10 p.m., there was a peculiar exchange with host Anderson Cooper. … During the Election Night broadcast …

Fox News Assistant Fired For Red Carpet Disclosure  —  TVNewser Exclusive: A 24-year-old Fox News Channel production assistant was fired this morning for something she said during the red carpet arrivals at the Time 100 Gala last night.  —  Insiders tell us the assistant, identified as Jennifer Locke …

McCain defends his ‘bearings’  —  NEWARK, New Jersey (CNN) - John McCain on Friday defended his charge that the terrorist organization Hamas is rooting for Barack Obama to win the presidency — and said voters were welcome to discuss whether his age should be a factor in the fall campaign.

Kennedy: No veep slot for Clinton  —  It's fun to think about, but there are so many obstacles, and Ted Kennedy isn't buying, he said on Bloomberg Television's “Political Capital With Al Hunt,” which airs this weekend. … Ouch.

McCain to Me in 1999: Bush “As Dumb as a Stump”  —  As a lawyer might say (OK, I am one), I have no personal; knowledge of whether John or Cindy McCain voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 election.  However, now that that has been called into question by Arianna Huffington (who says no) …

Time to Get Mad  —  Eric Martin reviews the latest out of Sadr City and waxes indignant: … Indeed.  One of several perverse elements of the U.S. presence in Iraq is that the presence itself is, at least in part, a cause of violent conflict in Iraq.  The big achievement of the past 18 months …

Clinton Supporters Send Last-Ditch Obama Attack Emails To Supers  —  As the Democratic primary nears its long-awaited conclusion, undecided superdelegates have been drowned under a sudden deluge of angry, sometimes vicious emails from Hillary Clinton supporters urging them to not fall in line behind Barack Obama.

Killing by the numbers  —  In 2007 elite U.S. snipers executed an unarmed Iraqi prisoner in cold blood.  Have the insidious tactics that led to atrocities in Vietnam reemerged in Iraq?  —  Genei Nesir Khudair al-Janabi, an Iraqi vegetable farmer, walked down to the ramshackle pump house along the banks of the Euphrates.

Where did the Web rumors about Obama come from?  —  WASHINGTON — Some things about Barack Obama rub some voters the wrong way.  —  “We don't need a Muslim,” said Jannay Smith, a retiree from Kokomo, Ind. “Who's to say if he gets in there what he'll do?”  —  Added Steve Shallenberger …

The Conservative Revival  —  For years, American and British politics were in sync.  Reagan came in roughly the same time as Thatcher, and Clinton's Third Way approach mirrored Blair's.  But the British conservatives never had a Gingrich revolution in the 1990s or the Bush victories thereafter.

Rahm Emanuel: Obama Is Our Presumptive Nominee  —  One of the most influential (and thus far subdued) voices in the Democratic primary all but declared the contest over on Friday morning.  —  “At this point, Barack is the presumptive nominee,” said Rep. Rahm Emanuel during the New Yorker's magazine conference.