Lip Quiver, Check. Puppy Eys, Check….

Bill Clinton did, indeed, appear at a few black churches in Los Angeles yesterday - but did a stunningly stupid thing. He actually canceled one appearance so he could fly off to watch the Super Bowl. No, really, he did.

In a dramatic day of politicking, former President Clinton made a series of contrite appearances before African American churches in Los Angeles while California First Lady Maria Shriver endorsed Sen. Barack Obama's historic quest for the White House.

With Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton campaigning in Minnesota and Missouri, her husband visited three churches in Gardena, Norwalk and Los Angeles this morning but canceled a fourth appearance to fly to New Mexico to watch the Super Bowl with Gov. Bill Richardson, his former Energy secretary and his wife's former rival for the Democratic nomination. Richardson has not endorsed a candidate.

Talking to the congregations, Clinton did not mention the controversy over his public comments before and after the Jan. 26 primary in South Carolina, in which he dismissed Obama's depiction of his record opposing the Iraq war as a "fairy tale," and in the aftermath of Obama's victory pointed out that civil rights leader Jesse Jackson had also won the state but failed to move ahead in his quests for the Democratic nomination.

Sounding chastened, Clinton talked about the election as the proverbial embarrassment of riches, saying he had waited his whole life to vote for an African American for president and just as long to vote for a woman.

"I say that to remind us that we have to find a way to choose without division. To disagree without discord. To celebrate the shattering of all these phony categories that have kept Americans apart too long," Clinton told about 500 people at Brookins Community AME Church in Los Angeles. "We respect the choices that you make in this election. And if you can't be for her, we honor that."

Clinton is not getting a huge amount of news coverage over this, surprisingly. I rather thought he would when I heard about this pity party he was throwing for himself. But the Clinton campaign appears to be stumbling both in the way it is handling things and in getting favorable media coverage. Interesting.