Mose Allison and Van Morrison. Early Tom Jones (yes, that one). Long John Baldry. And Lulu (yes, that one, too. Forget "To Sir With Love, try "Shake" and "Cry Me a River"). Dusty Springfield -- her "Son of a Preacher Man" was the one Aretha should have done. And, what's wrong with me, Jerry Lee and his Sun stablemates, Johnny something and that longhaired guy with the funny name. And while we're at it, Johnny Otis and Leiber and Stoller, who wrote for all of them.

I know you can't anticipate world events, but you could have held this piece off or, preferably, cancelled it. Even putting the enormity of the tragedy aside, Traister gives another example of why there's been such reader, uh, resistance (I'm trying to resist the vomit jokes) to her work in Salon. The only funny thing about this is the reference to the "Sex In the City" movie, an obvious attempt to revive the image of Salon as an online SItC that Walsh tried to push a couple of years ago, met, well, reader resistance, and that Traister was such a disgraceful part of. (I'm using politer terms because we were informed at the time that any criticism of Salon's female writers was horribly, disgustingly sexist. I, uh, resist.)

But, you're going to do this thing and can't bring yourself to make a joke about Larry Craig? Come on, people, that was genuinely funny. Watch your stance.

And have to agree with others who've questioned what Daniel Radcliffe's doing in ths. That Traister not only is unable to recognize a difference in quality between his dramatic performance and the rest of this stuff, but your artist featured him front and center in the collage is, well, discouraging.

Salon appears to have fired everyone but Traister, Havrilesky and Zacharek. And Greenwald, of course, who continues to write (and write, and write) from his bunker. Sherer's gone to Time (our loss and, knowing Time, probably not their gain) and Shapiro's exiled to Iowa, not such a bad exile if the rest of the country really is like Traisterland.

I woke up this morning to news of Benazir Bhutto's assassination, went looking for some news, and found this mess. Bhutto was a great, courageous woman trying to right her country, gone wrong through a takeover backed by men motivated by an extremist right-wing religion that sees no place in life for women outside of sex and procreation. What other society does that remind you of?

And Traister reinforces that. I ask you. Come on people, serious stuff is happening. Time to get back to work.

Well, no, the last posting on Salon before Bhutto's assassination wasn't Biden's "Cassandra" moment, it was Rebecca Traister's year-end sex roundup, featuring a completely inappropriate reference to Daniel Radcliffe's London acting debut and an even more offensive graphic. Just what the world wanted to see. Thanks so much.

But, if Chris Dodd agrees with you, maybe you should give him more publicity. He is the best one out there. It's not too late.

and it's a shame. While other candidates were playing the media, Dodd stayed the person he's always been: working quietly in the background, accomplishing, not blustering. He wrote the Family and Medical Leave Act that revolutionized how employers deal with sick families, the FIRE and SAFER bills that earned him the endorsement of the IAFF, the union representing the country's most-admired professional group, the Combating Autism Act, US Workers' Protection Act prohibiting outsourcing of of federal jobs, and the Support Injured Service Members Act, the FMLA of the military. He's also better on international issues than any other candidate. Yet people confuse him with Biden, who talks without acting, while Dodd acts without talking.

Typically, Dodd's greatest moment of the campaign came when, after moving his family to Iowa, he shut his campaign down completely to go back to Washington and threaten a filibuster over the FISA bill, defying not only Bush and Cheney but Reid and Rockefeller in his own party. He should have gotten a medal; instead, he got almost no publicity due to the media's incestuous relationship with the telecoms, and half of what he did get accused him of grandstanding. That's how heroism is rewarded. Obama said he supported him but never left Iowa; Senators Clinton and Biden never mentioned it, and never broke step.

Caulfield pretty much nailed it; others were so predictable you wonder why they were asked. Gloria Steinem goes for Clinton, after writing since the mid-80s about putting a woman in the White House in 2008. Not much different than the Editorial Board of the Des Moines Register, middle-age professional white women who endorsed a middle-age professional white woman because she was "the best choice," not because she looked like them. The Nation goes fearlessly for Kucinich, not worried about defeat because they've never won anything. You can't make this stuff up -- what would be the point?

The least-told story of Iowa is how, over time, Obama has come to look more like Clinton, pointing up the similarities between having a "unifying vision" and old-fashioned deal making. Obama never had the right and he's dumping the left, making him a prime DLC candidate.

That leaves Edwards, who's never lost his principles or his anger. An Edwards-Dodd ticket, balancing south and north, with Biden or Richardson as Secretary of State, would be the best choice for America. Clinton and Obama are needed in the Senate; if they can learn how to work instead of campaigning, they might also grow a backbone. It might be a help if Dodd, the Senate's most courageous member, were presiding over it.