The experience of attending a professional sporting event has been ruined by so-called audio architects, especially in the grand old game of baseball, where each batter now comes to the plate introduced by his own personal theme song played at distortionate volume.

And can anyone imagine electing someone without a catchy theme-song to public office anymore?

What is it about our culture that constantly takes a good idea (soothing people in cramped spaces, inspiring people or enhancing their emotional response to the shopping, or eating, or dating experience) and inflates, augments, and distorts it until the entire universe seems constantly on the brink of explosion?

No music day, indeed...

As long as we're parsing every little thing, and as one who could not be more appalled by George W. Bush in toto, I just have to say Ms. Clinton's "confidence" strikes me as not-oh-so-different from Mr. Bush's "arrogance" in one very important respect -- as an indicator of a lack of self-awareness.

I was going to describe it as a lack of genuineness, but I believe the president is, in fact, genuinely self-unaware, which is why his clueless bravado and endless optimism in the face of his own utter inadequacy and the failure of his presidency are so laughable, and, for the rest of us, tragic.

Ms. Clinton, on the other hand, knows "America wants a commander-in-chief brimming with confidence." It is, after all, the kind of person who's had the job the past eight years.

Ms. Couric actually handed the candidate a golden opportunity to burnish a part of her image that Republicans and Democrats alike seem to agree is the greatest impediment to her becoming our first woman president, and that is, frankly, her lack of genuineness.

It would have been far more genuine -- and honest -- of her to answer the question in a way similar to Ms. Walsh, to point out the strength and breadth of her lead in the polls, and to allow that not getting the nomination would neither be the death knell of her political career nor keep her from working to undo the terrible damage the outgoing Republican administration has done during the past eight years.

She's never thought about the chance she could lose the presidency? Of course not. In the same way her husband never inhaled and never had sex with that woman.

a great piece of memoir, history, and news -- all in perfect alignment with the HTWW mandate. sweet.

There you have it in a nutshell, sports fans.

Yes, it will be a relief to be rid of George W. Bush and his entire Texas misfitmafia; yes it will seem refreshing to consign theocratic, neoconservative exceptionalism to the dunce corner, where it belongs.

But don't any one go looking for real, substantive change, no matter whether it's Clinton, Obama, or Edwards with their hand on the Bible come January 2009.

By then, we'll own the world's largest embassy in Baghdad and half a dozen shiny new military bases throughout the rest of Iraq.

The troops won't be home for Christmas any year soon.

If Pluto can be tossed from the planetarium, why not bums from the Hall of Fame?

Chris, unintentionally perhaps, suggests the malaise with which so much of the body politic seems infected. Too many of us are too quick to cynically wash our hands of the dirty, mundane tasks requisite to the real changes we profess to want to see in our government and our society.

Must we really wait for a change in our foreign policy to begin the process of changing those other things -- like fuel efficiency standards -- that we CAN change now?

Where does a "who cares?" attitude leave us but under the heel of the very corporate/industrial monster we know must be defeated if we're to survive as a species?

I'm no Governator fan, either, but I applaud him for taking on this fight and, owing to the happy coincidence of his being in the right legally, ethically, and environmentally, California's fight against the EPA on this point ought to be a cause taken up by every one of us.

If you want it.

St. John, in a previous comment, is precisely correct.

This. Is. Not. Good.

You gotta wonder about a guy who refers to himself as "governor" (or permits his campaign staff to do so) when he's neither British nor actually a governor. What Mr. Huckabee is is a former governor, just as he is a former minister. Why doesn't his staff refer to him as Father Huckabee? I think we all know the answer to that one...

I see Michael Scherer left his political hack hat for Mr. Shapiro to don. Iowa caucuses are to democracy as "Plan 9 From Outer Space" is to cinematography.

Is it not bad enough the field is now cut to 3 after a couple hundred thousand white farmers have stood around yammering in each others' living rooms -- on what authority does Mr. Shapiro claim to make it a race between Obama and Clinton alone?

If journalists would spend more time learning about and reporting on the candidates' actual ideas for doing the jobs we elect them to instead of obsessing over how much money they've raised, perhaps the people with the best ideas would have a better chance of defeating the ones with the deepest pockets.

This is a well written and reasoned analysis about one aspect of the race for the Democratic nomination. However, it is not yet a two-candidate affair. Ignore John Edwards and his growing number of supporters at your own peril.

Walter, you are not exactly channeling the voice of America's greatest political journalist ever, Hunter S. Thompson (of blessed memory).

I suggest laying in a formidable store of scotch, ether, LSD, and valium before trying to foist this pedestrian analysis on us from New Hampshire and beyond.

Go get the real story, Walter, and tell it. Claim your place in the pantheon of journalists who dare to speak the truth.