Spin Cycle

1. Last Friday, Clinton's office put out an advisory saying she'd appear with Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Indiana) and Rep. Jim McHugh (R-Watertown) at a press conference today (Tuesday Jan. 16) to talk about the trio's trip to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
2. On Monday, a dehydrated McHugh apparently became lightheaded and stumbled while visiting wounded U.S. soldiers in a German military hospital -- forcing him to remain in Europe an extra day while Clinton and Bayh returned to DC.
(Note: Yesterday we blogged that McHugh 'fainted.' His spokeswoman e-Mailed us just now to correct that. 'McHugh never fainted -- to faint [is] defined as an abrupt, usually brief loss of consciousness,' she wrote. 'The Congressman was only briefly lightheaded.')
3. Midday Monday -- around 1 p.m. -- a Clinton person told Newsday the presser would probably have to be pushed back to Wednesday to accommodate McHugh's absence. By around 3:30 p.m. another Clinton person said the event had been rescheduled to Wednesday. They reiterated the postponement again at5 and 7 p.m. (As you can tell, Newsday gets a little obsessive about HRC's schedule.)
4. At 7 a.m. Tuesday Clinton's staff puts out a revised schedule, prompting overheated speculation she's responding to Obama.