The best line in the linked New York Times story is the last one, after he's been completed flustered by not knowing that condoms help prevent the spread of STD's:

"This went on for a few more moments until a reporter from the Chicago Tribune broke in and asked Mr. McCain about the weight of a pig that he saw at the Iowa State Fair last year."

Gotta love the Chicago Tribune. I'm sure they enjoy the McCain barbecues.

In every track event I've seen, the winner has gone off with a flag and done a victory lap. The only difference is that Bolt could start his before the finish line because no one was close to him. In a 100 meters race. Which so boggles the mind that he ought to be able to do any damn thing he pleases when he's finished, because the real message he sent to his opponents was the distance between himself and them when he crossed the finish line.

You don't enter this race without an ego.

We have the US Attorneys scandal. We have the DOJ hiring scandal. We have the complete abandonment of any pretense of doing anything except counterterrorism, attacking medical marijuana and some sex scandals (hi, Governor Spitzer!). And now we have an FBI thinking some profiler's conclusions are evidence when any idiot could poke holes in their "lone gunman" theory.

And this was counterterrorism, yet working with white Christians in suburban D.C., not Arabs in caves in Afghanistan or in sleeper cells in Dearborn.

One of Nixon's biggest applause lines, as stupid as it sounds, in his 1968 acceptance speech was a promise to appoint a new attorney general. I think Obama should steal it.

Just like it was between Bill and Hillary Clinton. And Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson (for some reason, everyone mentions JFK, but far fewer LBJ). I don't have a stake in someone else's marriage, thank you very much.

And "men" don't cheat. People cheat. There were women involved in all these affairs. Are they somehow free agents while the men are not?

I really wish the federal courts would take this term and stick it where the sun don't shine.

Presidents are elected by an electoral college, not by the people (and the people of North Dakota have significantly more say in that election than the people of California, on a per capita basis). Senators were originally selected by the legislatures of the respective states. A senator who resigns is initially replaced by the choice of the governor. Gerald Ford was a president voted into office by both houses of Congress. And judges of the federal courts are selected by the President with the advise and consent of the Senate. So which ones are "political branches"?

In my state, we elect judges. Therefore, we should have three political branches. Should our state judiciary thus be less deferential to the legislature and the governor than the federal courts are to Congress and the President?

The proper way to look at it is that the federal judiciary is, just like Congress and the President, selected in accordance with the terms of the Constitution. It is expressly given all the judicial power under the Constitution. It should exercise that power in accordance with the Constitution, without any deference to the so-called political branches based on some notion that they are closer to the people, because that is the choice the Constitution makes.

If you walk around any major U.S. city and most minor ones, you'll find statues to all kinds of obscure politicians and generals. No one has a clue who they are and no one can look them up on Bill James's lists. At least the kids of Chicago know who the hell Harold Baines was.

If they put up a statue of Jay Buhner at Safeco, we could all rub the bald head for good luck. It would be fun. But you know why they never will? Not because Bone wasn't a great Mariner, but because Bill Bavasi was his dead ringer.

The right will hold Bush's feet to the fire (and would do far more to McCain, who isn't one of them) forever, but still vote for him, but Glenn can't disagree with Obama over an important policy without having to, what?, support Bob Barr? That's a straw man argument.

In Washington State, where I live and practice law, the law is pretty clear that the value of an attorney general's opinion (official, published) is exactly nil. Which, when you think about it, is what it should be. Otherwise, the executive branch can--as Bush and his cohorts wish to--override both the express wish of the legislature, as either agreed to by the executive or by an overridden veto, expressed sufficiently emphatically that the Constitution says the executive's consent is unnecessary, and take away the judiciary's entire power to interpret the law in the particular instance.

You can imagine the back and forth: attorney general's opinion, followed by a judicial intepretation saying the attorney general is wrong, followed immediately by the attorney general coming up with another cockamamie theory, and on and on. The basic theory of the executive having this kind of power under the U.S. Constitution is a blatant misreading of both the words of the document and the notion of legislative power extant in 1787.

I'm still afraid that Obama is like Frodo at the Cracks of Doom as far as this power is concerned.

Someone will say you aren't a true believer.

We actually take our Presidential candidates as we find them, and the only ones we have to choose amongst are Obama and McCain (sorry, but the general election campaign for us ordinary folks began the day Obama clinched). If I picked Obama over Hillary by a close margin, that doesn't mean I have to agree with everything he says to 'support' him.