The Popular Press is lined up outside the tuxedo rental places here in Your Nation's Capital, to get ready for what they all assume will be the Coronation of Sen. Barack Obama as the Nominee for President of the Democratic Party after the primaries in Kentucky and Oregon.

The endorsement of John Edwards yesterday, one assumes, also brings his eleven delegates with him. That would put Obama, according to CNN's count, at 1,910 delegates only 115 short of the 2,025 to have a majority.

Kentucky (60 delegates) and Oregon (65 delegates) will hold their primaries on Tuesday. Assuming Obama and Clinton split them about evenly, that will give Obama 62-or-so more delegates meaning he will be only about 53 delegates shy of the magic number which the Popular Press will cede to him because he will need less than half of the 110 delegates left to be chosen in the final three primaries on June 1 (Puerto Rico) and June 3 (Montana and South Dakota).

Drat.

I really, REALLY, wanted the Democrats to have floor fights over every semicolon in the platform, every credential issued to every staff member, every seat assigned to every alternate, and every speaking position in the convention program.

Meanwhile on the campaign trail …

President Bush, speaking to the Israeli Knesset warned against trying to appease an enemy:

"Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along."

While that generated applause among the members of the Israeli parliament, the Obama campaign, showing a thickness of skin which can be measured in angstroms, wailed that Bush was accusing Obama of favoring appeasement in dealing with Israel's enemies.

How Barack decided that the President was talking about him, still mystifies me.

Associated Press reporter, Liz Sidoti, reminded us that Obama might be just a little sensitive to the appeaser tag, thus:

The first-term Illinois senator responded to the comments as if they were criticism of his position [as stated in one of the 2,347 debates] that as president he would be willing to personally meet with Iran's leaders and those of other regimes the United States has deemed rogue.

I was on ABC News yesterday afternoon with Sam Donaldson and, after watching a clip of the President's remarks, I said that I assumed the President was talking about Jimmy Carter. Continued...