If I'm not mistaken Mrs. Clinton was using GOP talking points against Obama by calling him "inexperienced" for saying nuclear weapons were off the table when going after al qaeda.

And Mr. Edwards was using GOP talking points when he said Obama was "too nice" to make a good president (well I'm not sure whether the GOP has gotten around to saying that yet, but I have the feeling they will).

So nobody owns these so called talking points. What isn't a GOP talking point when it comes to animadversions? The question is whether or not anyone is really aiming below the belt, and I think most commentators are pretty impressed with lack of truly low shots. We all know they can go lower.

But this obama is, to paraphrase the Matrix, the ONE..../ or Obama is going to drag the party into the depths of Dick Cheney's wet dreams (yuck did I just say that?) are flip sides of an exaggeration about Obama.

I mean he's a nice guy (for the most part--not perfect, but probably kind to his neighbors polite at the office and mainly disliked by those who envy him) and a smart guy, a liberal who like a politician he claims to admire, Harold Washington of Chicago, will probably try to be fairer than fair, and in doing so perhaps pull a lot of energy from a lot of quarters to make the party (and even the country) stronger. I for one am glad he pulled off something that I didn't quite expect.

But Clinton earned my respect when she called it a good night for Democrats. And although I support Obama, I'm glad Edwards is still in the running. I'm sure Hills isn't calling it quits by a long shot either. You never know what's going to happen in love or politics. Everyone hold their hats.

It's not a perfect book but it kind of reminded me of part of this story. The author recounts her pregnancy and she and her husband are harvard professors who have a lot of prejudice against low IQ people...until they have this exquisite child with down's syndrome.

I just get uneasy with people who are into designer children...I'm not saying that the author of this article is one of them...although maybe she is. I just think that you never know what the special needs of your kid are going to be. Some kids might have bipolar or mental health issues that don't show up until later--people can get brain damage from car accidents or falling in the shower. You just don't know what needs a human being is going to show up with until they show up, especially when it's a child.

I don't mean to sound naive about the issue. My younger brother was born with hydrocephalus and we were told he would be brain damaged and delayed. It took him longer to learn how to talk/walk/read. I guess you could say he was delayed. But you wouldn't know it now. By about age six he had "caught up" so to speak. He had an inner-drive to compete from an early age and he just recently completed a marathon, he owns his own house, has a child, a wife, and works at a nice neighborhood luxury supermarket in management. If he were any brighter we might have had to make him sip lead paint.

I'm just saying that sometimes in universities especially to be careful about the idea that IQ is a fix-all. I've known high IQ people who were emotionally crippled as children...and I've known low-IQ children and adults (my best friend's mother adopted disabled children when I was growing up) who were as emotionally "designer" as children could be.

And sometimes specialists deliver the news as if they know, when in fact any human child is a series of guesses. If the author feels bad about what happened, maybe she should keep her heart open because the human soul is complicated, even in children. The child that is born to her won't provide the easy option of opting out if it isn't perfect, so she should prepare her heart to try to love and accept the child as it is.

I guess I'm probably stating the obvious.