Fukuyama has, perhaps inadvertently, summed up why Obama is likely to be the next president.

He identifies McCain as, essentially, too tied with Bush. He appreciates some of what Clinton is about, but doesn't want a return to the confrontation mentality that has become a signature note of the Clinton world view. And he sees that Obama at least represents the possibility of positive change.

I understand that much of Obama's support comes from the same sense of HOPING that he will make things better. And while I don't KNOW that he will make things better (even as I don't KNOW McCain will be a disaster, nor KNOW that Clinton will inspire a new wave of hate & divisiveness in American political life), I do know -- as an Illinois resident who has been aware of Obama for quite some time -- that he is competent, bright, curious and means well, which is a good start (and the polar opposite of what we have had for the last 7+ years).

I've been saying for a week or so that Clinton only wants the opportunity to decline the veep job, which allows her to save some face.

The notion of an Obama-Clinton ticket (and to a certain exent, vice-versa) as some sort of a dream ticket just doesn't make sense. You need a running mate to balance out any negatives you may have, not add to them. And while staunch democrats might find the pairing attractive, the center will most certainly not.

Why McCain’s attacks on Obama are misguided: The Keating scandal.

The banking industry deregulation in the 1980s gave savings and loan associations a new flexibility to invest their depositors' funds in commercial real estate (as opposed to earlier restrictions to investing only in residential real estate.) Many S&Ls began making risky investments, leading the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the federal agency that regulates the industry, to try to clamp down on the trend. Five US Senators tried to put pressure on the FHLBB to back off of this effort.

In 1989, the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association of Irvine, Calif., collapsed, and Lincoln's chairman, Charles H. Keating Jr., was faulted for the bank’s failure.

Prior to that collapse, Arizona Senator John McCain had received $112,000 from Keating and Keating's relatives and employees, through contributions to McCain's Senate campaign, more than any of the other Senators comprising what became known as the “Keating Five”. In addition to campaign contributions, we know that McCain's wife (along with her father) invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, just a year before McCain met with the regulators in his effort to help Keating. The McCains made at least nine trips at Keating's expense, sometimes aboard the American Continental Corporation (Lincoln’s parent company) jet, which including vacations to Keating's opulent Bahamas retreat at Cat Cay. McCain did not pay Keating for many of those trips until years after they were taken, after he learned that Keating was in trouble over Lincoln, whose collapse is said to have cost taxpayers $3.4 billion.

McCain was cleared of any CRIMINAL wrongdoing, but he still stinks to high heaven, and the fact that his wife still won’t release her tax returns is ample reason to suspect that there’s a part of this story that remains untold.

Rumor has it he also slipped Hoffa out of the Meadowlands and re-interred him at the new site. The sneaky bastard!

Every time McCain or one of his surrogates says "Ayers" or "Rezko" Obama's camp needs to say "Keating." McCain is no "Mr. Clean" -- even by Washington standards -- and that point needs to be driven home.

To your mentions of Silverman and Sedaris as additional evidence of thriving female humorists, I'd like to give a shout-out to The Daily Show's Samantha Bee.

And he'll find out who took the extra helping of strawberries, too, I'll wager!

. . . will not be Puerto Rico.

No, W and his cohorts want Iraq to be the 51st state. Just imagine a US state with all that darned oil!

Sane people everywhere may laugh at the notion of comparing US military bases in the American south with a long-term US military presence in Iraq, but to those making the argument, there's a perfect logic in it.

It would be funny if it weren't so scary.

Arguing that gang activity in the armed forces is not Petraeus' "area" to excuse his professed ignorance is disingenuous at best.

Petraeus is a ranking general in the hottest theater we have. Army, Navy, AF and Marine investigators are all well aware of the bugeoning gang activity in the military. So are most major cities' gang-crimes units. While gang members still represent a very very small portion of total military, the problem is being taken very seriously among both military and civilian folks. How can Petraeus NOT be aware of this?

The answer, of course, is that to acknowledge it would be to acknowledge that W's War has so damaged the ability of our miliary to recruit that they will let just about anybody enlist. Waivers for all kinds of past criminal activity have skyrocketed. Petraeus is as much politician as general, so he can't admit any of this for the record (even though the stats are public record) because it would make his patron look bad.

Limbaugh claims he'll gladly do his time as a badge of honor, and do his show from jail.

Ironic, since he fought like hell to stay out of jail when he got jammed up over his abuse of presriptions during his drug-addled Oxy days. (And since he missed out on his chance to do his time in the armed services due to a boil on his bum.)

This guy's so used to having carte blanche under the Bush administration, and so generally delusional, that he really believes they'd let him do a radio show from prison. Hey Rushbo, I'm guessing the department of corrections might be a bit unwilling to play along with your little stunt.