Today we witnessed the culmination of the Democratic Party's reenactment of the Bataan death march. In a Kafkaesque hearing, the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the Democratic Party all but ensured the nomination of Barack Obama for President of the United States. It's Obama's party now and will remain so unless, as many fear, he comes up short in November. Should that come to pass he will take his place as a pariah among fallen Democratic candidates from Mondale to Dukakais to the feckless John Kerry. (I omit Gore as he actually won his election.)

Obama proclaims himself to be a unifying force in a fetid swamp of discord and distrust. It is now his, and his alone, obligation to prove it. He's got his work cut out for him, and, IMHO, he's not off to a very good start.. While today's result was largely preordained and pro forma, one aspect is likely to engender the ire of Clinton supporters (Full disclosure: I count myself among their number). The delegate apportionment scheme for Michigan is an unconscionable abuse of process, common sense, goodwill and unity. The arbitrary and capricious nature of the ½(69-59) delegate split in the Wolverine state will rankle Obama detractors and Clinton supporters for far longer than he would hope and for some, irredeemably.

Had Clinton been given her share of the (admittedly flawed) January primary vote, with Obama gratuitously awarded  the uncommitted delegates, it would have been disappointing but, on some level, understandable. It would be specious to argue that Obama would have received no delegates out of Michigan. But the hijacking of 4 Clinton delegates, and make no mistake, it was GTD (grand theft delegate), is a slap in the face to Democratic Michiganders and Clinton supporters. Compounding the error is the fact that it was unnecessary. Does any sentient being believe that these four delegates are dispositive as regards Obama's nomination. An expression I am fond of is: pigs get fat, hogs get nothing. Obama fought for these four superfluous delegates because he could, not because he needed them. And in doing so he alienated legions of Clinton supporters while taking a giant step backwards in his quest for a unified party.

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As we learned yesterday from The AP, DNC lawyers have confirmed that the Rules & Bylaws Committee is not authorized to restore the full delegations of Florida and Michigan even if it were inclined to do so:

A Democratic Party rules committee has the authority to seat some delegates from Michigan and Florida but not fully restore the two states as Hillary Rodham Clinton wants, according to party lawyers.

Democratic National Committee rules require that the two states lose at least half of their convention delegates for holding elections too early, the party's legal experts wrote in a 38-page memo.

"Lose at least half" is a slightly different scenario than FL DNC member Jon Ausman suggested this week was the likely result of Saturday's meeting:

"I think we're moving toward half votes for everybody," DNC member Jon Ausman said of his appeal to be heard Saturday by the DNC's rules and bylaws committee. That would mean superdelegates would have the same vote as pledged delegates.

In other words, Florida Democrats would have the same say in the presidential nominee as Democrats in Guam, American Samoa and the US Virgin Islands.

Considering just Florida, it's interesting to look at the difference between these two scenarios: cutting the delegations in half vs. giving the full delegations half votes. As Chuck Todd points out, the distinction has real world implications:

As for the actual meeting itself, there's one more angle you ought to be aware of: a 50% cut and a halving of the delegates is not the same thing. For instance, if Florida delegates are seated in their entirety, but only have their vote counted as a .5, then Clinton will net approximately 19 delegates out of the state. But if the delegation is cut in half, that's done in every congressional district as well as statewide, then suddenly Clinton's advantage is only a net of six. That's right, the complicated nature of the DNC delegate selection process will be a good reminder to math majors everywhere that a 50% cut is not the same as a halving of an individual number.

Of course, whether Clinton nets 6, 19 or the full 38 FL delegates  she hopes to get out of Saturday's meeting, she still won't catch Obama in the overall delegate count. As DemConWatch's handy chart demonstrates, even with FL & MI fully counted, Obama still leads Clinton by more than 100. But then again, for Clinton, the Michigan/Florida crusade ceased to be about delegates a while ago.

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