Watching the Bush administration treat Iraq like its private AMT for the last seven years, and now faced with the possibility of watching McCain and Palin "bring the pain," I'm starting to think that there needs to be a better way of selecting a president.

Maybe it's time for a national Presidential lottery, a random picking of a president based on only two criteria: you can't be a felon and you got to be at least 35. With our technology, we could easily put everyone who meets the criteria in a big electronic fish bowl and draw a winner.

I know some people will say we already have a lottery. They look at Sarah Palin and say, "She's kind of random. There doesn't seem to be much reasoning behind her selection."

But I think those people miss the point. Palin wasn't picked randomly. McCain must have thought it out, or least thought about it.

Really, we need to get beyond all of this and work on putting in a national lottery.

The biggest advantage is that the odds are we wouldn't get some politico pit-bull, raring to chew off the leg of any Democrat that gets in her way, and we wouldn't get some fuzzy-headed geezer like McCain who unleashed her.

Instead, we'd get some average, random American who, I'm sure, would do as good a job as McCain or Palin as president without all of the hateful posturing and silly name calling.

I didn't much like his fiction. Its irony and postmodernism seemed familiar, but his essays were sharp and funny, and he was from central Illinois and I spent much of my life living there and teaching lit and creative writing, and feel a kinship with screwed up writers from there.

I'll miss the guy.

What amazes me about him is that he apparently had everything, talent to burn, time to write, a sweet teaching load, people reading and loving his books, and he kills himself.

Like I said, I don't get it, but my wife tells me I'm naive, that people who kill themselves have reasons that the folks left behind don't understand. It's not about what they have, but rather about what they feel they don't have, and you and me will never know what that loss feels like.

I'm sure she's right.

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine, a terrific writer and a kind, compassionate, generous guy killed himself. I couldn't make sense of that death either, but one thing that helped me was a song by Lucinda Williams that I found right after my friend killed himself.

Here it is:

Sweet Old World

See what you lost when you left this world, this sweet old world

See what you lost when you left this world, this sweet old world

The breath from your own lips, the touch of fingertips

A sweet and tender kiss

The sound of a midnight train, wearing someone's ring

Someone calling your name

Somebody so warm cradled in your arm

Didn't you think you were worth anything

See what you lost when you left this world, this sweet old world

See what you lost when you left this world, this sweet old world

Millions of us in love, promises made good

Your own flesh and blood

Looking for some truth, dancing with no shoes

The beat, the rhythm, the blues

The pounding of your heart's drum together with another one

Didn't you think anyone loved you

See what you lost when you left this world, this sweet old world

See what you lost when you left this world, this sweet old world

I've been a reader for 50 years and I've seen writers I love die, some naturally and some unnaturally. I've said goodbye to Faulkner, Hemingway, Plath, Steinbeck, and Primo Levi.

The deaths have always hit me hard because the relationship you have with a writer is greater than the relationship you have with anyone else. In the secret place you go to when you are reading, you and the writer share dreams and fears and wishes and hopes in a way that is nothing like your relationship with anyone else.

The writer is your lover and your confessor, your mother and your father, your God and your satan. And you are the same for him. The writer tells you what he dreams and what he fears. He will tell you what he dreams and doing so you help him come a little closer to those dreams. He will tell you what he fears and doing so you help him push those fears away a little bit. And you do the same for him.

It's hard when a writer you love dies but only for a while. His death begins to fade when you pick up his book again, return to that secret place.

MOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVE

excuse me, madam, I think you are standing on my baby!

MOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVEOVERMOVE

The whole format for these debates is stupid.

It gives both candidates the opportunity to duck questions and duck responses. McCain can say something inane and turn to the "moderator" and ignore Obama's sputtering. Obama can try to clarify a point and get cut off and left hanging.

I can't believe I'm going to say this, but we ought to do what the French do. The last presidential debate there had the two candidates sitting across a table from each other. Eye to eye. Face to Face. No moderator limiting responses or prompting them, just some reporters throwing out questions.

What the French got was a real dialogue.

Here's a youtube of the event. Take a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R54Jq3D7Ck