bipolar? are you kidding me? have you ever seen someone during a manic episode? i have - it's like they've taken 5 hits of acid and eaten a bag of mushrooms. they are totally out of control, not incontrol but making dumb decisions, a la blago.

nothing in his behavior indicates mental illness - rather, it's just plain old hubris with a side order of pretty stupid. he probably has some traits of narcissistic personality disorder. but not bipolar. not even close. it's the phenomenon you witness among many celebrities, power brokers, and the uber-wealthy: they live in an alternate universe, where the rules don't apply.

to be sure, this kind of wheeling and dealing goes on all the time in state and national politics. he doesn't even think he did anything wrong! he was just dumb enough to leave a trail, especially when he KNEW he was being watched. that's just irrational and stupid, not bipolar or manic.

Lots of great suggestions here. I'm kind of torn on the Phelps thing, because what he did was truly incredible, but yes, there are 17,000 swimming events, and yes, the coverage was all-Phelps, all the time, which tended to overshadow what I think is the most underrated story of the year: Dara Torres.

At 41, and after sitting out the previous two olympics, she became the first woman in history to swim in the Olympics after 40 and a five-time olympian. And it's not like she qualified for team Luxembourg - she beat out the best swimmers in the world, her own countrywomen, just to qualify.

In her individual event, the 50 free, she swam her best time in her life, set an American record, and lost the gold by 1/100th of a second. 35 minutes later, she swam the fastest 100 split by a woman EVER and secured silver for Team USA.

And she did this all without the help of performance enhancing drugs (I happen to know her resistance stretchers personally, who trained with her every day for two years leading up to the games, and they know with 100% certainty that she's 100% clean).

Furthermore, the humility and grace with which she accepted her two silvers, knowing this was her last shot and knowing how hard she worked to get herself back to olympic shape, was a shining example for all athletes to model themselves after. After losing the gold in the 50 free by 1/100th of a second, she joked "I guess I shouldn't have filed my nails last night."

She's the most underrated story because her amazing accomplishments were all but whitewashed by Phelpsapalooza.

The same kind you see when an athlete gets caught using 'roids, or when an actor gets arrested for possessing some blow. I'm not defending Blago, but let's be honest - what he did goes on in every government on every level in some form or another. Politics is all about scratching each others' backs, doing favors for each other, building up political capital, etc. Blago was just stupid enough to do it blatantly. He merely lacked finesse. He got caught up so far in his own vanity that he forgot to pretend that everything is on the up-and-up.

Did he cross some lines? Sure. Was he unbelievably careless and cavalier? Absolutely. But all the wringing-of-hands and gnashing-of-teeth over this, while we have war criminals still occupying the white house, is a little much.

And the attempts to link Obama to this are laughable. You think he didn't know from day 1 of his campaign to steer clear of Blago because of the federal investigation? It's been well known for a long time that Blago was going down ... it was just a matter of when. Why do you think Blago was given such a negligible role in the campaign (as in, no role)?

Blago is an unbelievable narcissist who deserves to be stripped of his governorship and his reputation. But let's not pretend he killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in a war of aggression entered into under blatantly false pretenses.

Thank you for saying exactly what I was thinking, only better than I could have said it. Cable news is recycled trash - nothing more. No real investigative journalism, no real insight, just incessant prattle about the scandal du jour, featuring dopes who don't know squat acting as "experts" by speculating as to what may or may not have happened, and how this may or may not affect this or that person's reputation, and what the response may or may not be. The only funny part is marvelling at how seriously these people (the hosts & guests) take themselves, acting like they're solving some national crisis by going on camera and stating the obvious, then arguing about it at the most superficial level.

During the election, cable news was a necessary evil - it was the only place you could go to get the score. But now that the election is over, the only people who should be watching that crap are those in airport departure lounges, oil change places, and nursing homes. You nailed it.