What this is is a trial balloon, possibly spread by the idiots who have bought all those ads for the Donkey-Elephant clone, or supporters of the Bloomberg ticket -- in other words, idiots.

You can't make it happen, no matter how much money or creepy ideas you have, so you spread a rumor. If you can have a few meat puppets out there saying, "What a great idea," you're doing good. Only later do the people start laughing and you know you're cooked.

Look, if Veneman is thinking better of his membership in the Bush White House, he might end up going to heaven. It might be the sign of a sea change in the GOP. But that's still no reason to put him in the White House. Remember Kerry's Real Swell Idea for a running mate? Who was it? Why John McCain! A better argument against a Kerry presidency could not be imagined.

I see the statement, "Competence has no ideology," and I know I've just heard wishful thinking.

Understand, I don't respect any slavery to ideology. The interesting moment should come, for a big-state liberal, when he sees a circumstance where there should be no law, and no government spending, and no taxation. For a small-state conservative, the test comes during, say, Katrina, when the resources of the state, competently applied, are an indispensable life-saver.

But no ideology means, no thought. You must try to define a problem and a reaction or a lack of reaction to it. That requires some basic ideas, which must be responsive to reality, but which designate us, more or less, as liberal or conservative, someone who believes in Manufacture, like Hamilton, or in State's rights, like Calhoun. I expect each human mind to use ideology humbly and to beware of exceptions; but it is a necessary component of human thought and action.

I don't think we should look to politicians as role models, any more than we should look to basketball players or pop stars or anybody who exists on that media-shadow-puppet level. We don't really know media figures because we can't, and we shouldn't really try, because the media machine exists to lie about its targets. We ourselves lie about our idols, making them into demigods. A really good politician can illuminate, persuade and teach -- about public policy, not morality. About the activities of our government. I keep thinking of Charles Parnell, the 19th-century Irish politician, who was going to win Home Rule for Ireland with a parliamentary vote when, conveniently, it was discovered that he was keeping a woman in London. That "priest-ridden country," in Joyce's phrase, exploded in self-righteousness, and the protestant Parnell had his career destroyed at its height.

Still, and all, although I was very much in favor of Edwards' policies -- he and Hillary had much better health plans than Obama -- there was always a nameless nagging question for me about him. What was it? The haircut? I was scornful of those stories. The story that he told was of his love for his family, his smashing wife and the story of her illness. We could sniff at Newt Gingrich abandoning his first wife as she lay in the hospital with cancer, because we had a righteous couple imbued with humane policies, who were sticking together in the cause until death itself.

Now it turns out there WAS something to the ridicule about the Breck Girl. What was that referring to except a certain narcissism, which he confessed on ABC. He indulged with an attractive but brainless politician's groupie. A fatal flaw? Not for me, but it ends his aspiration for higher office because it exposes the flaw that contradicts his main narrative. Turns out he was lying about how loving he was.

Two centrist journalists and a right-wing troll. What the hell were you thinking, Schaller?

Obama, I have no difficulty saying, is a man of actual faith. It surprises us, because the right-wing preachers have made us react negatively to anyone who brings it up.

McCain doesn't wear his faith on his sleeve, methinks, because he's only capable of cynical political gestures, like calling crazy old Falwell an "agent of intolerance" and then a great man of faith when it suited him -- down to getting Hagee's political support -- a man who shouldn't be allowed next to a banquet table or our politics. His abortion politics merely sign on the bottom line: a GOP presidential candidate is 100% against abortion or he doesn't get the nomination.

I hope the evening picks up a few more votes for Obama, but I'm not holding my breath. As for me, discussing your religion in a public forum at all, outside of a church, is intensely creepy.

Hillary didn't know what hit her. Barack would say something wise and presidential and, uh, liberal, and the webizens would do all the dirty work. As long as we stick to truth, go ahead, be nasty as you want. Barack didn't start it. He wants you to stop. (Don't stop.)

You know, there's another possibility: that Hillary is not a scheming shrew, but a patriotic American, who, after losing a hard-fought primary, truly wants her former opponent to win, because they believe in so many of the same things.

Why is it that so many have the picture of the Clintons that the right wing and the elite Clinton-haters in the media have? That's probably why they were SURPRISED at the knockout, pro-Obama speeches they both gave at the convention.

I supported Hillary because she was always, to me, the person who gave that ringing speech at the convention. So drop it.

And go Obama!