Hillary Clinton admitted yesterday that her claim, in a major prepared foreign policy speech last week, that “I remember landing under sniper fire” in Bosnia in 1996 and “we ran with our heads down” to avoid being hit, was false. She says it was a “misstatement,” that she inadvertently “misspoke,” and that this whole issue is a “minor blip.”

Remember, this “misstatement” by Clinton was not an off-the-cuff, throwaway remark. It was in the prepared text of a major speech, and it formed part of a broader argument that Hillary has meaningful foreign-policy experience from her days as first lady. Politico has more, including video of the CBS News report that debunked Hillary’s statement and spurred her to correct it:

On an almost-related note, Josh Marshall weighs in, again, on the Clinton campaign’s ongoing “fog of nonsense”:

Spin is one thing. And it’s not a bad thing. But to have utility it must be tethered to some relevant facts, some kind of reality. Otherwise it just descends into ridiculousness. There’s always some new clever but inane argument to twist ‘up’ into something at least somewhat resembling ‘down’. Or if not that, enough to keep your head spinning long enough not to notice for a while that 2 and 2 still equals 4.

And finally, on an entirely unrelated note, a goofy picture of President Bush and the Easter Bunny, courtesy of NRO and Drudge:

NRO readers suggested some captions, but I don’t think any of them are terribly good. I think Irish Trojan readers can do better. Suggestions?

Vegas has tabbed two of the better-seeded Sweet 16 teams as underdogs: #3 Xavier (by 1 point to #7 West Virginia) and #2 Tennessee (by 2.5 points to #3 Louisville).

Meanwhile, the Vegas oddsmakers — much like yours truly (see my current Facebook status at right) — have jumped on the Davidson/Stephen Curry bandwagon. The #10-seeded Wildcats are only 4.5-point underdogs against #3 Wisconsin. WOOO!! Goooo David(son), Beeeeat Goliath!!!

(Curry, incidentally, isn’t just a freakin’ awesome player who scores like a bazillion points a game and who looks like he’s about 16 years old. He’s also apparently a really nice, genuinely humble guy.)

The other Cinderellas aren’t so highly regarded. #1 Kansas is an 11.5-point favorite over #12 Villanova, and #1 UCLA is favored by 12.5 points over #12 Western Kentucky. That comports with history; top seeds are 16-0 all-time against #12 and #13 seeds that manage to reach the Sweet Sixteen, and it hasn’t usually been close. (Twelve of the sixteen games have been decided by double figures.)

But College Hoops Journal says we shouldn’t sleep on WKU: “All they’ve got going for them is some late-game mojo (first true buzzer-beater since Drew Nicholas in ‘03) and a UCLA team that has escaped three of their past five games with terrible non-calls from officials. How vulnerable is UCLA? They only scored 51 points against Texas A&M and clearly can’t shoot when someone’s not afraid to punch back. … The Hilltoppers are in the perfect position of being able to fly under the radar (as much as any 12-seed can right now) and finally take the stake to UCLA’s heart.”

Personally, I’m not buying what CHJ is selling, but man oh man, it would be awesome if the Hilltoppers could topple the Bruins.

Dayton is threatening to bust Mark Gardner’s perfect NIT bracket.

UPDATE: Dayton wins! So there will be no perfect bracket. Gardner’s streak ends at 21 straight. (He did get Ohio State’s win.)

I’ll update the pool standings (NIT and women’s) in the morning. Suffice it to say, however, that Gardner’s lead has shrunk from 14 points to 4. Josh Krause, in second place, picked Dayton.

P.S. The wins by tOSU and Dayton also mean there will be all-Ohio regional final between the Buckeyes and Flyers, in Columbus. Fun.

UPDATE, 3/25, 8:03 AM: I’ve updated both the women’s and NIT pool standings. Both are also after the jump.

In the NIT pool, Gardner went 3-for-4 on the day and effectively increased his lead back to 14. (Technically, he’s only seven points ahead of Ginny Zak, but their picks are identical for the remainder of the tournament and thus she cannot pass him.)

Meanwhile, the big story yesterday in the women’s pool was Carolyn Blessing, who went 8-for-8 on a day with two upsets (#6 Pitt over #3 Baylor and #6 GW over #3 Cal) to move within one point of the co-leaders and their “chalk” brackets.

Those co-leaders — Tom Caputi, Ken Stern, F.X. McGahee, Chuck Wessell and Kay Torg — haven’t predicted a single upset thus far, and their risk-aversion has largely served them well, as 18 of the first 24 games have gone according to seed. But now others are moving within striking distance. Moreover, the co-leaders’ brackets finally begin to diverge tonight, over a pair of 4-5 games. In the Notre Dame-Oklahoma game, Stern and Wessell picked the #5 Irish, while the others picked the #4 Sooners. In addition, Wessell picked #5 Old Dominion over #4 Virginia; the others picked the Cavaliers. So those games will largely determine who has the lead heading into the Sweet 16. There is also a scenario where Michael Rosenkrantz, currently in 12th place, could take sole possession of the lead — if Oklahoma and Old Dominion win, and #5 Kansas State beats #4 Louisville.

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The Justice Department has approved a merger between Sirius Satellite Radio and rival XM Satellite Radio.

Speaking of the Indiana primary… the South Bend Scenario — the latest salvo in the "vast right/left-wing conspiracy to piss me off" by making every single place I’ve ever lived, except the place I’m living now, a major hub of presidential campaign activity — is proceeding according to plan: Bill and Chelsea Clinton are in South Bend today to celebrate Dyngus Day (video here), and the Obama campaign is opening a South Bend office, declaring that Obama will campaign "in every corner" of Indiana. (Hat tip: JT.)

So, there have now been campaign visits by major candidates and/or their top surrogates in Greater Hartford, Los Angeles, New York City, Phoenix, South Bend and Denver (my possible next home)… everywhere I’ve ever lived except Knoxville.

HARUMPH.

With Hillary Clinton appearing to have an insurmountable edge in Pennsylvania, Mark Halperin says the "developed consensus" is that "Clinton probably has to win North Carolina’s May 6 primary to fight on
with a real chance — but/and Obama has to win it to avoid a prolonged
fight." Polls there show a slight Obama edge.

You’d think that, at some point, the focus would become exclusively on delegates, rather than on objectively meaningless "wins" and "losses." But of course, you’d be wrong. The objectively meaningless could be subjectively pivotal, because of the importance of the superdelegates, the media narrative, etc.

Thus, although it advances the "wins" vs. "losses" narrative, I gotta ask: what about Indiana, which votes on the same day as North Carolina? Might not Obama need a two-state May 6 sweep to really get the "Hillary should drop out" meme going?

TNR’s Noam Scheiber thinks so. Here’s the key excerpt from his excellent piece on the "Democratic death march" toward Denver:

Democrats have never been known for Spock-like rationality, but
even they see the logic of avoiding a convention fiasco. "It’s in
nobody’s interest in the Democratic Party for that to happen," says
Mike Feldman, another former Gore aide. "There is a mechanism in
place–built into the process–to avoid that." That mechanism, such as
it is, involves an en masse movement of uncommitted superdelegates to
the perceived winner of the primaries. Almost everything you hear from
such people suggests this will happen in time. "I think once we have
the elected delegate count, things will move fairly quickly, " says
Representative Chris Van Hollen, who oversees the party’s House
campaign committee. Increasingly, there is even agreement on the metric
by which a winner would be named. Just about every superdelegate and
party operative I spoke with endorsed Nancy Pelosi’s recent suggestion
that pledged delegates should matter most.

Assuming Feldman and Van Hollen are right, that means Democrats won’t
wait much past June 3–currently the last day on the primary
calendar–before crowning a nominee. At the same time, it means there’s
very little chance of ending the contest sooner. Undecided
superdelegates on Capitol Hill, along with party elders like Pelosi,
Gore, and Harry Reid, "don’t want to be seen as elites coming in and
overturning the will of the people," says one senior House aide. A
Senate staffer says his boss "thinks this give and take is natural, it
will be helpful in the end." "That’s a view held by a majority of these
guys who have been through the cut and thrust of politics," he adds.
Which means early June it is. …

The most optimistic scenario I could plausibly construct didn’t end the campaign until the second week in May.
To make it happen, Obama would have to overtake Hillary among
superdelegates–a key psychological barrier. He’d have to limit his
margin of defeat in Pennsylvania to ten points, then hold serve two
weeks later in North Carolina and Indiana, a pair of states he’s
slightly favored to win. At that point, Hillary would face nearly
impossible odds of overtaking him in the delegate race.

Unfortunately for anyone who wants the race to
end soon, there are several problems with this scenario. For one thing,
even if all this comes to pass, Hillary would still have to bow out
voluntarily–an unlikely twist in any event, but highly implausible if
the limbo states of Florida and Michigan still offer her hope.
Meanwhile, any one of the aforementioned steps could easily fall
through. Polls currently show Obama trailing by double digits in
Pennsylvania; the good Reverend Wright could make that tough to change.
And, though Obama now leads in North Carolina and Indiana, his
advantage is either small or, in the latter case, based on a single,
flimsy poll. As for superdelegates, as of this writing, the last two
out of the closet opted for Hillary.

So, to
review: The most optimistic scenario we have relies on a highly tenuous
assumption; it’s unlikely to happen even if that assumption holds; and,
regardless, it allows the Democratic contest to drag on for six more
brutal weeks. The dream may never die, but it’s seen some better days.

The focus of Scheiber’s article, as that latter point implies, is the damage the Democrats are doing to one another. At one point, he writes that "debating national security credentials during the primaries invariably
alters the general-election landscape. You can now count on seeing
another ‘3 a.m.’ ad sometime this fall–not to mention a ‘3 a.m.’
debate question from Tim Russert, and a shadowy, ‘3 a.m.’-obsessed 527
group. (’Insomniac Prank-Callers For Truth’?)" Heh.

He also notes, referring metaphorically to Democrat-on-Democrat attacks, that "any missile that hits its target would also destroy the person who launched it":

Given the delegate math, Hillary’s only path to the nomination, barring
a meltdown by Obama, is to destroy his electability. But harsh attacks
on Obama will inevitably discourage African Americans from voting in
the fall, and Hillary can’t beat McCain without strong black turnout in
places like Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia. Conversely, any
attack on Hillary that alienated moderate Republican women could
cripple Obama’s chances.

Indeed.

With the men’s NCAA Tournament taking a three-day breather, the NIT steps boldly into the breach tonight with four Sour 16 games (hey, they can’t exactly be "sweet," it’s the freakin’ NIT). That means Irish Trojan NIT Pool leader Mark Gardner’s perfect bracket will be put to the test. Gardner is 20-for-20 and leads the pool with 152 points, 14 more than his nearest competitors.

Tonight’s games are #4 Cal at #1 Ohio State, #3 Dayton at #2 Illinois State, #5 UAB at #1 Virginia Tech, and #3 Nebraska at #2 Mississippi. The first two games are at 7pm EDT, the second two at 9pm. Gardner picked the favorites: tOSU, ISU, VT and Ole Miss.

After tonight, only seven games will remain, so if Gardner goes 4-for-4 tonight, his mathematical chance of finishing with a perfect bracket (assuming all teams have an equal chance of winning) would improve from 1-in-2,048 to 1-in-128.

Also tonight is the first half of the second round of the women’s NCAA Tournament. In my women’s NCAA pool, it’s a seven-way tie for first at the conclusion of the first round, with F.X. McGahee, Chuck Wessell, Kevin Curran, Tom Caputi, Michael Rosenkrantz, Ken Stern and Kay Torg all having 145 out of a possible 160 points — the same total as the "all favorites bracket." Complete standings here and after the jump.

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In the aftermath of Duke’s win over Belmont on Thursday, the NBC affiliate in the Raleigh-Durham area bypassed the CBS/NCAA embargo on tournament game highlights by re-enacting the game using dolls:

Heh! Somebody get this guy a network gig. And I want to see that frog in One Shining Moment, dammit.

(Hat tip: AOL Fanhouse.)

North Carolina 108, Arkansas 77, final — and it was only that “close” because Arkansas ended the game on a 10-5 run. UNC led 103-67 with 3:14 left. Like I said: ouch.

So, the greatest four-day weekend in sports is over — and it was a good one. The first day evoked unpleasant memories of last year’s largely upset-free, mostly undramatic opening weekend, but Friday, Saturday and Sunday made up for Thursday in a very big way. Two titans, Duke and Georgetown, went down, as did sexy sleeper picks Pitt, UConn, Clemson and USC (sigh); three double-digit Cinderellas, Davidson, Villanova and Western Kentucky, moved on; a whole bunch of high seeds had a whole bunch of close calls; and game after game was hyper-competitive and extremely enjoyable. Hurrah! Long live March Madness!

Pool update shortly — including, for the first time, the “Possible Outcomes” page showing who’s still alive to win. (Now that there are “only” 32,768 scenarios left, my pool software can calculate this.)

UPDATE: Here are the standings of the 13th annual Living Room Times men’s basketball pool presented by the UCLA Bruins. And here’s the possible outcomes page. (To sort the possible outcomes page by mathematical likelihood of winning, instead of by current rank, click twice on the column header “# First.”)

As noted earlier, Ryan Morgan is in first place, 12 points ahead of Ken Wagner. Impressively, Morgan wins in 20% of the 32,768 remaining scenarios — a very high percentage for this early in the tournament. However, 86 of the 245 contestants, including everyone currently ranked in the Top 30, are still mathematically alive to win.

(The highest-ranked contestants not still mathematically alive are Ken Inadomi and Nathan Evangelista, who are currently tied for 31st but can finish no better than second. The lowest-ranked contestant who still has a shot: George Heidkamp, currently 223rd out of 245, who would win the pool in exactly one of the 32,768 possible scenarios.)

Current standings thru 48 games are after the jump. The maximum possible number of points to date is 272. The pool is scored on a 5-7-10-15-20-25 basis.

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The Notre Dame men were eliminated by Washington State yesterday, but the Notre Dame women are still alive, headed for a Tuesday second-round matchup with Oklahoma after beating #12-seed Southern Methodist this afternoon. Go Irish!!

In my women’s pool, there’s a five-way tie for the lead among Kay Torg, Ken Stern, Tom Caputi, Chuck Wessell and F.X. McGahee — and, in a tournament that has seen only two upsets in 24 games, those co-eaders are also tied with the “all favorites bracket.” Complete standings here and after the jump.

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Ryan Morgan predicted both of the NCAA Tournament’s biggest upsets to date — West Virginia over Duke and Davidson over Georgetown — and now he’s got a sizable lead in the 13th annual Living Room Times men’s basketball pool presented by the UCLA Bruins. (You can see his bracket here.)

Morgan, a Drake alum and Wisconsin fan who lives in Milwaukee and surfed onto the Irish Trojan’s Blog just a week ago, has a 12-point lead over his nearest competitor, Ken Wagner of Nashville. The pool is scored on a 5-7-10-15-20-25 basis.

Morgan has 200 out of a possible 251 points. Wagner has 188. Liz Janelle, Robert Dokes, Khalil Aboukhaled, Alex Whitfield and Amir Sadaghiani are tied for third with 186.

Aboukhaled (a.k.a. “fezafou”) briefly tied Morgan, who had led overnight, when Villanova won Sunday’s early game. (Morgan picked Clemson.) But when Tennessee beat Butler in overtime, Morgan retook sole possession of the lead (Aboukhaled picked the Bulldogs), and he increased that lead a few minutes later when Davidson stunned Georgetown.

Morgan picked Memphis, North Carolina and Louisville in the final three second-round games. Everyone near the top of the leaderboard made the same picks, so major changes tonight are impossible. Morgan is guaranteed to remain in sole possession of first place heading into the Sweet Sixteen.

Complete standings here and after the jump.

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In the battle to determine my rooting interest for the remainder of the tournament, Tennessee leads Butler, 53-49 with 7:53 left.

In the other games still ongoing, it looks like Texas, Western Kentucky and Georgetown have the edge (though I’m still hoping for a Davidson comeback in the latter game). And earlier, Villanova beat Siena. I’ll post a pool update after the conclusion of all four of the games currently underway.

UPDATE: What a great bunch of games those turned out to be!! Texas survives a furious Miami comeback, Western Kentucky does the same against San Diego, Tennessee wins a thriller in overtime over a game Butler squad, and Davidson rallies to stun Georgetown! WOO!!!

I realize it’s easy to second-guess the committee after the games have been played, but man, Butler is way better than a #7 seed, eh? They should have been able to reach the Sweet Sixteen without playing a team as good as Tennessee (which arguably should have been a #1 seed). But alas. Great win for the Vols. They certainly had to earn it. I’ll be rooting for them from here on out — unless they meet Davidson in the Final Four (not totally implausible) or Western Kentucky in the title game (umm, kind of implausible), in which case I’ll probably revert to my usual mid-major lovefest.

Anyway, pool update coming shortly.

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Somehow, when they set the schedule for tomorrow’s games, I don’t think CBS was expecting to lead off with a nationwide broadcast of #12 Villanova vs. #13 Siena. Heh.

UCLA just won an instant classic, 53-49 over Texas A&M.

Absolutely incredible finish. UCLA’s rally was remarkable: their defense was just superb, and it seemed like they scored on three or four straight possessions when they absolutely needed to, often on very tough shots (including one Jordanesque fadeaway by Kevin Love). Then, down the stretch, both teams just kept making huge plays on both sides of the ball. It was exactly what you love to see in the NCAA Tournament. One “shining moment” after another.

Utterly heartbreaking loss for the Aggies, obviously. As for the Bruins, will this be their “great escape” en route to a Final Four and perhaps a national title? We shall see. They now face the winner of a #12/13 game in the Sweet 16, and then if they win that one, either a #3 or a #7 in the regional final.

As for the 13th annual Living Room Times men’s NCAA pool presented by those selfsame UCLA Bruins: updated standings are here and after the jump.

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