The news that New Mexico governor Bill Richardson hadn’t been selected in the baseball draft as he had claimed will probably spell doom for his presidential hopes. It fits too perfectly with the lying politician stereotype, although his share price hasn’t completely bottomed out on the Tradesports futures market:

It will soon, though. Tom Ruprecht starts putting in the coffin in the New York Times:

Mr. Richardson said that “after being notified of the situation and after researching the matter” he had come “to the conclusion that I was not drafted by the A’s.” – The Associated Press, Nov. 25

YES, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico had to embark on an exhaustive fact-finding mission to determine whether or not he was ever a major-league baseball player. (And we wonder why nothing gets done in government.)

But in Mr. Richardson’s defense, we’ve all been there. I can’t tell you the number of times I had to stop what I was doing and ask myself: “Wait, am I on the Cleveland Indians? Do I have a game this evening?” One night last summer, I recall watching a Colorado Rockies game and staring at the pitcher for several minutes, wondering, “Is that me?”