David Schlaefer writes: "You also hit the nail on the head as regards the show using a sledgehammer to hammer home poltically or socially irreverent content. It was much more subtle in the early days, smarter of necessity, and more effective."

An observation that could pretty much be made about our entire culture, no? Smart and subtle are quaint artifacts of a bygone day, although the Obama Administration seems to be struggling mightily to bring them back. But maybe we need more Homer and less Ned in the White House.

I'm sorry. I meant to say more Bart and less Ned in the White House (I forgot we already did 8 years of Homer in the White House...or was it Mr. Burns as VP that made it all so awful?)

Next week:

Older woman/younger man--devout Christians

Following week

Same age couple, he affluent yuppie/she a waitress

Week after

Transsexuals--he now a she/she now a he; both recovering Republicans

Presented here now to give the know-it-all's a headstart on crafting oh so clever advice on how all of these relationships are doomed...or not.

This is humanity as I know it and love it....which is why LW will continue relationship with older man regardless of all the free advice.

It's your life, girl. The only one you'll get. Own it as you will.

Joan, I will not be reading the book, but I look forward to your next installment. In particular I'm hoping to see if Clinton/Branch address at all the wholesale sell-out of the Democratic Party to corporate interests. I think we've all heard more than enough about the healthcare fiasco, dealing with Newt, and getting BJ's from Monica...though I absolutely love Evan Thomas looking for some Shakespearean gloss on the whole affair. It speaks volumes about the establishment media--they just can't get their collective heads around the fact that the man just couldn't resist the simple pleasures of a young girl's mouth without some high falutin' my kingdom for a horse rationale.

Which brings me to this: Is it that the Dems simply can't resist the pleasures that corporate money can buy them, or do they have some high falutin' rationale--something Shakespearean perhaps--for climbing into bed with corporate lobbyists and succumbing to date rape?

Dear Cary

I’m going to be turning 17 next month. I’ve been living with severe acne since I was 14, which has just killed my sex life. I’m on the school baseball and football teams, but I’m second string on both and will remain so since the first stringers are the same age as me. I hardly know my mom any longer since she works two jobs to pick up the slack from my dad’s bankruptcy. And dad has become a fulltime tea-bagger and gun nut who only talks about the government taking his money, which is funny since he’s on unemployment. My grades aren’t good enough to get me into college and even if they were, I couldn’t afford it. I’m looking at 40 years of hard road ahead of me with diminished job prospects, a collapsing environment and seemingly endless wars, which I may have to sign up for just to feed myself. Life sucks so much I wish I could be 50 or 60 so I’d be closer to the end of it. Any tips?

Downhill Racer

Gee, last week Obama's stunning defeat before the International Olympic Committee. This week his stunning victory before the Nobel Prize Committee. Will he make a stunning announcement on gay rights this weekend? And next week, should we be prepared for a stunning decision on Afghanistan? And you just know that whatever happens in health care, it's going to be absolutely, positively stunning.

I swear this country's now living wholly on amphetamines.

Two things running through this thread that require some context.

1. All this talk about what this says the world thinks about Obama or the US ignores the point that this award is decided by five people--the size of an average American family or one starting girls' basketball team.

2. All this talk about what one man--Obama--shouldda, couldda accomplished...or even tried to accomplish--in 10 months ignores the point that there really is a military/industrial complex in charge...and only the most naive observers could possibly believe that one man no matter how full of hope and change and charisma he had was going to walk into that Oval Office and immediately advance substantive changes in the way they run the world.

Aside from the fact that I whole heartedly agree with the spirit of Glenn's post, I've found this dust-up over the snarky comment from the anonymous WH staffer about pajama-clad bloggers totally ridiculous. Here's a brigade of snark-armed bloggers who routinely refer to the denizens of Washington DC--both political and media--as Villagers mainlining cocktail wieners, and they get their (what's digby's phrase?) panties all in a twist over a little blow back from (ooh, very scary) a White House source.

Really, Glenn, if you allow the good citizens of the blogosphere to keep Beltway feet to the fire, don't you think it's only fair and reasonable to allow the Beltwayians to fire back once in a while? What is it about progressives that they always seem to find self-defense so distasteful?

And while I'm at it, I love the way every time there's an attack on bloggers those on the left immediately circle the wagons. They act as if they're some monolithic, put-upon little community that doesn't include the likes of NRO, Little Green Footballs, Hugh Hewitt, and Red State. My guess is that when Joe Klein and Richard Cohen go public with their whining about abusive bloggers, they aren't making a distinction between the always reasonable Mr. Greenwald and the nearly psychotic Erick the red. And why should they? After all when was the last time a blogger on an anti MSM rant made a distinction between John Harwood and Jane Mayer?