The Seattle Times has a news service report on CNN’s decision to call last night’s race for Hillary Clinton, and when to do so…

Shortly after 10:30 p.m. EST Tuesday, John King, the chief national correspondent for CNN, was telling viewers how the network already would have declared Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton the winner of the New Hampshire primary under normal circumstances, and how these were anything but.

But before King was done, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer broke in to report that The Associated Press had called the race for Clinton but that CNN still was not ready to do so.

Perhaps the network — along with other outlets — could be forgiven for being gun-shy. The results went against the predictions of an overwhelming victory for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, and an inevitable campaign shake-up for a wounded Clinton.

With raw memories of past miscalls, CNN President Jonathan Klein said he instructed his producers to avoid calling the race too soon, even as he gave them the go-ahead to share the AP projection that Clinton had won.

“The only heat I was applying was that we be positive that we’re correct,” Klein said, “not that we be first.”