I'm already shut out of a growing number of Internet sites that accommodate only the most expensive stateoftheart software and block my smooth-running Panther 10.3.9.

A handful of rich people quarreling among themselves does me no good.

Perks brought Daschle down. He admitted at one point that he had come to assume that a chauffeured limo was a way of life. But GG missed one big perk that separates the Beltway political class from the rest of us: health care. Daschle had become the quintessential representative of health care for Us, versus health care for Them. That was going to be the deal. It will be interesting to see who gets thrust forward next to make sure Pol Class health care perks are not spread around. It's the same thing as fixing banks instead of foreclosures.

Thanks for getting it right.

I was hesitant to endorse Obama because I thought there was merit to the argument that he lacked "experience." I gradually became convinced that Clinton would lose to McCain, but that Obama was the only Democrat who had a chance of winning. It also became clear that whatever experience he may lack is offset by keen intelligence, knowledge of history and persuasive policy documents.

But the last few weeks have taken their toll.

We are still learning more about him by the company he keeps: Wright, and now Brennan, owner of the company that provided the people who looked up passport files they weren't authorized to see. One screaming black racist, and one inept entrepreneur. One more strike and Obama may be out.

A major speech about Wright and race this past week, followed by a press conference on the same subjects. Where does that leave us?

1) Obama never denied knowing about Wright's racist rhetoric. All he said was that if that was all he knew ... etc. etc.

So he knew of it, and discounted it. For as much as 20 years.

2) Obama appears to have joined Wright's church purely as a political move in his upward mobility career.

3) The claim that he didn't really know anything about Wright's ideology for the last 20 years isn't credible, isn't plausible, doesn't wash.

So Obama comes off looking like one more politician of less than pristine integrity, far from the messianic crusader he seemed to be a month ago.

One more revelation about some close association with another bum he used as a political stepping stone, and Obama may be finished for this year. What he is may end up speaking more loudly than anything he says.

Don't neglect HMOtalk .....

"preventative," for example.

"Wellness."

1) Please pay attention: Clinton has explained her decision to vote for the first Iraq War resolution. She said the White House lied to her .. that she was told that despite the resolution's title it would not be used to authorize war. That is a pretty important detail ... but no one in the Beltway orbit has followed up because they prefer to beat a dead horse. Please stop.

2) Obama for Democratic nominee: I dislike his increasingly demagogic style, and his vacuous sermons. But he is preferable to Clinton. The conservative right will fragment in the next few months over whether or not to endorse McCain, form a third party or stay home. Clinton will mobilize the stay-at-home conservatives and provoke them into coming out to vote for any Republican. Better to elect a wooly-minded Democrat than McCain.

3) I should add that the best thing I know about Obama is that one of his foreign policy advisors is golden for me relative to the people on this planet. Samantha Power, author of A Problem from Hell can do no wrong. She obviously knows something I do not know. I trust no one in politics. I trust Samantha Power in life.

Fiddle with a third party candidate.

Say that any Republican is a lesser evil than a Democrat and endorse McCain.

(this is what Laura Graham did Friday nite)

Stay home.

It is possible to find on the internet, and view, videos of terrorists decapitating their victims ... alive and screaming. Anyone who has not witnessed at least one of these videos should do so. It is enormously enlightening.

Americans don't understand class, let alone class war.

No matter how well Edwards explains it, they just don't get it.

It's unfamiliar ideas and language.

Beyond that, having met Edwards many months ago,

in a relatively small meeting

that lasted about an hour,

he is clearly brilliant, knowledgable, articulate, charming ...

indeed, more of a Southern aristocrat than a populist.

But he lacks the ability to mobilize people.

He is strangely cold.

I left the meting feeling sad and disappointed.

Nothing I have heard or read

since has changed that reaction.

My question is what role if any Edwards will play in the Democratic Party.

He is a classic US Senator who could have made a significant contribution to

American poitical and intellectual life for decades to come.

But he has thrown that opportunity away.

I've been hearing this kind of Christian Hate ideology since Barry Goldwater's run for president in 1964. And I hold the distinction of having been beaten up by a John Birch Society street gang when I was campaigning for Adlai Stevenson in 1952. More than 50 years worth of this drivel tends to immunize one. But Conason offers a strong reminder that we should not minimize the danger of these Christian terrorists. Google Shariah if you doubt that. America's Taliban are not that far behind.