I was feeling sorry for Hillary Clinton...

... just now, when I saw the expression on her face as she waited to go onstage in El Paso. This process is so grueling. And the rejection, when it comes is so personal, in a way "normal" people never experience. Even a performer as professional as she couldn't conceal the bone-tired, beaten-over look on her face.

But now, fifteen-plus minutes into a dreary recitation of policy-points that will do nothing to satisfy those who want her to say what her campaign is for, I am feeling less sorry. She has not had the grace to mention Barack Obama's name, nor his existence or success. Not as "Senator Obama," not even as "my worthy opponent in the contest for our great party's nomination -- for this battle we all believe in to change the course of the nation's future" and so on. This on a night when he has just trounced her fair and square in Virginia and, presumably, will in a few minutes be shown to have done the same in Maryland and D.C. (Update: Maryland just called, the second the polls closed.)

CNN has just switched off her speech (and I'm not going to see it on CCTV). This is not classy and does not help. Not that the campaign is short of critics at the moment (see my Atlantic colleague Josh Green's excellent inside account), but whoever advised her to take this petty approach made a mistake. Or maybe, reacting as a normal person, she just couldn't bear to talk about it.