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.

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.

John McCain called out by Jed Bartlet's aides  —  JERSEY CITY, N.J. — It turns out that hobnobbing with liberal blogger Arianna Huffington and the cast of NBC's “The West Wing” on the left coast can be a risky proposition for a Republican with White House ambitions.

Damsel of Distress  —  This is an amazing story.  The Democratic Party has a winner.  It has a nominee.  You know this because he has the most votes and the most elected delegates, and there's no way, mathematically, his opponent can get past him.  Even after the worst two weeks of his campaign …

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.

Friendly Fire  —  A series of emails from the DoD's document dump on the media's stenography-driven easy access program for Pentagon military analysts caught my attention the other day.  I wonder how veterans will react?  —  Beginning on page 17 of this document, there's a conversation …

Come On, You Call This a Manifesto?  —  In 1974 a committee of evangelical Christians, headed by Billy Graham, convened an “International Congress on World Evangelization” in Lausanne, Switzerland.  Graham and other evangelical leaders felt that the whole evangelical movement …

Republicans vote against Mother's Day.  —  On Wednesday, the House took up the seemingly uncontroversial H. Res. 1113, “Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day.”  The resolution initially passed 412 to 0, until Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) rose in protest:

Obama's Faulty Tax Argument  —  As the presidential campaign heats up, a key issue is whether to extend the 2001 and 2003 income tax cuts, which expire in 2011.  John McCain wants to make the tax cuts permanent.  Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton want to let the rates rise.

Did Edwards Tip His Hand?  —  Former presidential candidate appears on MSNBC, refuses to reveal who he voted for on Tuesday.  —  But says in passing- “I just voted for him on Tuesday.”  Or was it “just voted for 'em?”  Or something else? … Also says there's “a great likelihood” …

Obama Needs a History Lesson  —  In his victory speech after the North Carolina primary, Sen. Barack Obama said something that is all the more remarkable for how little it has been remarked upon.  —  In defending his stated intent to meet with America's enemies without preconditions, Sen. Obama said:

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.

IRAN'S WEAPONS....Tina Susman of the LA Times reports that Iranian involvement in Iraq's civil war may not be everything it's been cracked up to be: … This item only showed up on the LAT's Iraq blog, not in a regular news piece.  If it weren't for the blog, I wonder if we ever would have heard of this?

You want radical?  You got it  —  Supreme Court justices take an oath promising to “faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties . . . of the Supreme Court of the United States under the Constitution and laws of the United States.  So help me God.”

Interview of the Vice President by Paul Gallow, the Paul Gallow Show, Mississippi  —  Q Good morning, Mr. Vice President.  How are you, sir?  —  THE VICE PRESIDENT: Good morning, Paul.  How are you?  —  Q I'm fine.  It's the second appearance on the program, and I thank you so very much.

Bernie Ward admits to child porn in plea deal  —  (05-08) 18:49 PDT SAN FRANCISCO — Bernie Ward, the most prominent liberal voice on Bay Area talk radio for more than two decades, admitted Thursday to distribution of child pornography by e-mail in a plea deal that will send him to federal prison for at least five years.