Your Honor, I'm Done With Dis . . . Gal. By: Mark W Adams

Remember My Cousin Vinnie? The little guy, the underdog fighting the establishment knocked off witnesses one-by-one. When he finished destroying each person testifying for the prosecutor, he's utter the immortal words, "I'm done with dis guy."

And that's how it's done, one opponent at a time. In politics, that's how you pick off the other candidates. Last night, John Edwards had Hillary Clinton on the stand, cross examined her, and finished her.

"The Clinton Era officially ended at 9:34 p.m. EST when Edwards paired with Obama to bury Hillary as a non-agent of change. Wow, again.”
TAPPED’s Tom Schaller: “R.I.P., The Clinton Era, 9:34 P.M. Est

"Hillary: Angry, Attacking, Frustrated. This may be the moment we look back on and say, ‘That’s when she lost."
TIME’s Ana Marie Cox -- Hillary: Angry, Attacking, Frustrated

"Hillary was sharp-edged and angry sounding at times tonight--most notably the Medusa look she blasted at John Edwards when he got Barack Obama's back and tarred her as a reactionary agent of the ‘status quo."
TNR’s Michael Crowley -- Dem Debate Insta-Reaction

"Clinton got her dig in on Obama (and it was a very fair hit) but the double-team defense from Obama, Edwards (and even Richardson) was potentially devastating for Clinton; it did her no favors."
NBC's Chuck Todd -- Double Team Defense from Obama and Edwards Was Potentially Devastating for Clinton.

ABC News | After Edwards Compared Clinton to the "Forces for Status Quo,” "Clinton Shot Back… Raising Her Voice…She Almost Shouted."
ABC News reported, after Edwards compared Clinton to the “forces for status quo,” "Clinton shot back, emphasizing, 'Making change is not about what you believe or about making a speech, it's about working hard.'
Raising her voice, she said, 'I want to make change, but I've already made change. I'm not running on a promise of change. But on 35 years of change and we don't need to raise false hopes of people in our country about what can be delivered.'
And she almost shouted: 'I think that having a first woman president is a huge change.'
The back and forth got so heated that fourth-place candidate Bill Richardson quipped, ‘I've been in hostile negotiations that are a lot more civil than this"

And perhaps in the best news of all, since the minuscule number of delegates at stake in these first few contest, the media narrative is what pushes the momentum. No clearer example of this is that somehow John McCain's fourth place finish in Iowa miraculously became a tie for third that launches him into contention in the Granite State, when Hillary's third place finish could be called a tie for second, but isn't, and it is crushing her chances to go on.

That's your Potomac Village Press at work, shaping the message of the massagers to fit the story they want to tell. And their influence is inestimable, which is why I like this story most of all, by a non-beltway source:

"The Press Center Is Eating Up John Edwards’ Attack on the Status Quo."
New Hampshire Presidential Watch