Three Kings

I watched Larry King host CNN's Super Tuesday coverage last night and found three things oddly enjoyable:

1. Mo Rocca's observation that Rep. Marilyn Musgrove, R-Colo., sponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment, "was incredible in 'One Few Over the Cuckoo's Nest.' I thought she was great."

2. The way in which Tucker Carlson was squirmishly not amused by Rocca's commentary, but seemed to be biting his tongue because he realized he couldn't object without looking like a humorless jerk, and anyway it's Larry's show and Larry clearly is delighted with Rocca's humor. I sometimes find Mo a bit precious, plus he has a Leno-esque tendency to pull his punches when he's got someone on the ropes. But his steadfast refusal to take Carlson as seriously as Carlson takes himself was fun to watch.

3. Carlson's unhealthy obsession with Hillary Clinton. Here he is speculating on Kerry's choice of running mate:

I don't know why John Kerry wouldn't ask Mrs. Clinton to run. I mean, by all accounts she's beloved in the Democratic Party. She's tough. I don't know. One is always hearing about how competent she is, how great she is, how much people just adore Mrs. Clinton and how loyal she is to the Democratic Party. And that last point is obviously true. She is loyal to the Democratic Party. So I don't know why she would turn it down if asked and I don't know why he would not ask her. …

I've got nothing at all personally against Mrs. Clinton. I want her to run. …

I think it would be interesting. I mean, more to the point I think it would be a really interesting ticket and I must say I'd like to hear John Kerry explain why she wouldn't be his No. 1 pick. She seems obvious to me. Why wouldn't he pick her? Why would he just pick some senator you never heard of, a safe choice who's going to help carry a state. Why not her?

I don't know that I've heard any of my liberal or Democratic friends eager for Kerry to pick Clinton as his running mate. Yet we hear this from conservatives like Carlson all the time. It's … odd. Kind of monomaniacal.

Normally, when one party is eager for a member of the opposition to run, it's because they have all kinds of secret dirt on that person. But Hillary Clinton is one person we know — in exhaustive detail with a decade's worth of footnotes — that her opponents have nothing with which to attack her. So why are they so eager for her to run? Is it just the hope that she would motivate the base core of their party ("base" here has, of course, two intended meanings) — the part that loathes ambitious females? Or is it something else?

UPDATE: In retrospect, I should have labeled this post "Larry, Squirmy and Mo," although perhaps it's better that I didn't.