however, here's a better dog/loyalty/love/family/hope story:

"The Art of Racing in the Rain," by Garth Stein.

Enzo, the dog, is named for Enzo Ferrari.

If a movie is made based on this book, I'd go see it, even though Enzo dies and a young mother dies, too. (Those two pieces of information are NOT spoilers.)

No, he won't come out for gay marriage. Not a chance.

From Leonard Pitts' column after the vote in California....California voters passed an initiative denying recognition to same-sex marriages. This overturned an earlier ruling from the state Supreme Court legalizing those unions. The vote was hardly a surprise; surely there is nothing in politics easier than to rouse a majority of voters against the "threat" of gay people being treated like people.

But African Americans were crucial to the passage of the bill, supporting it by a margin of better than 2-to-1. To anyone familiar with the deep strain of social conservatism that runs through the black electorate, this is not surprising either. It is, however, starkly disappointing. Moreover, it leaves me wondering for the umpteenth time how people who have known so much of oppression can turn around and oppress.

more accurately defined as "torture," all involved are essentially already "pardoned" by the Military Commissions Act.

Look it up. MCA lets all of them off the hook preemptively, so on the torture issue, some legal experts believe there is no reason for pardons.

As'ad AbuKhalil is the author of several books on the Mideast including "The Battle for Saudi Arabia: Royalty, Fundamentalism, and Global Power."

He said today: "CNN is lauding Obama for going on al-Arabiya TV as an example of how he is willing to reach out to the 'Muslim world.' But al-Arabiya is run by the Saudi King Fahd's brother-in-law. ... Does CNN know that Bush spoke to Arabic TV stations regularly, and Rice was a fixture on al-Arabiya? The administration selected al-Arabiya because it is 'friendly' to U.S. interests and because on al-Arabiya, U.S. officials get softball questions. ... Obama chose this station because he wanted to appease the Saudi royal family. This president talks about how bad dictators are, but he is signaling that he, like Bush, will coddle Saudi Wahhabi dictatorship -- a key ally of Israel today. Do you notice that Israel does not even make token noise about Saudi arms sales?"

AbuKhalil is a professor in the department of politics at California State University, Stanislaus. He edits the "Angry Arab News Service" blog: http://angryarab.blogspot.com

A lot of people who voted for Obama don't have any particular political ideology. They voted for him because they are in the mood for change, a move away from the past eight years. They were first-time voters who don't have a clue about how things work, but they bought his promise of change and hope.

But, many of the people who voted for Obama did so because they are progressives, who expect Obama to look left-of-center for solutions. How many people will Obama disappoint if he continues to court Republicans, who have spent the last 7 decades trying to dismantle the New Deal? Republicans hate regulation. Their destructive policies have widened the gap between the ultra-rich and the poor.

If Obama wants to succeed, he'll need to act more boldly than he has and seek to put his name on Big Ideas that Last. If he continues to compromise with Republicans and seek their stamp of approval, he plays right into their hands. He should keep the ball at his end of the court!

Spot on.

President Clinton was (is) a Great Communicator.

Obama should put Bill on the road to sell his economic recovery package.

OK. Chuck Todd?

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. Some have compared this financial crisis to a war. And in times of war, past presidents have called for some form of sacrifice.

Some of your programs, whether for Main Street or Wall Street, have actually cushioned the blow for those that were irresponsible during this -- during this economic period of prosperity or supposed prosperity that you were talking about.

Why, given this new era of responsibility that you're asking for, why haven't you asked for something specific that the public should be sacrificing to participate in this economic recovery?

I'm no fan of Chuck Todd's (in fact, I've never seen him on his network), but this is a perfectly legitimate question, IMO.

I'd feel better about Obama's chances of fixing the economic debacle, if he'd have the cajones to tell the American people "no tax cuts -- none -- until we're out of this mess." That'd be a "sacrifice" that would make sense.

Once again, I ask for someone, anyone, to tell me how saying you needed time to understand a situation you said you were intimately familiar with a month before is even a halfway acceptable answer, let alone handing someone their lunch.

Obama's response, that's been touted as a slam dunk, was a dodge, pure and simple, and not an artful one at that.

All this "astounding" data could be stood on its head if Tedisco should win Kirsten Gillibrand's seat in New York today.

I'm only saying "if" -- I sure don't know how it's going to turn out. But if Murphy (the Dem) should lose, the GOP message machine will be cranking out the noise that Obama's policies are DOA.