There may have been ways for John Edwards to get press attention in this campaign, other than speaking out on issues that really matter to people and taking the high road in debates. He could have staged media events, or made outrageous statements, or used his wife's breast cancer in inappropriate ways, and the media might have taken note.

Instead, he chose to stick to the issues, to stand for, in Howard Dean's famous phrase, the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, and all we heard about him was haircut jokes.

And then he chose to walk away when it made sense to do so, not as a kingmaker or a power broker, but as a man whose issues will either be taken up by the two remaining candidates, or they will just sell their souls a little further to the media machine.

I intended to go to my caucuses and support John Edwards. I have no clue what I'm going to do now.

We get both an introduction to the Cuban-Americans, welcomed into this country when escaping a brutal regime, seeking to permanently hijack our foreign policy for the benefit of whatever they want to do today (hello, Elian Gonzalez!), and the families of POW-MIAs, who wanted to hijack our foreign policy for the benefit of their own inability to let go of the past (which I can understand on a personal level, but hardly at the level of policy).

The Vietnam War was, as John Kerry so eloquently put it, a mistake. Lyndon Johnson acknowledged as much to Richard Russell on a White House tape recorded before the Bay of Pigs. 50,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese died for that mistake. The families of those who were lost over there, however, were wrong to try to hold our foreign policy hostage to their needs. And to attack John McCain for reaching a different conclusion about how to heal the wounds of that war (and do the very odd thing--give political cover to a President of the opposing party who was doing the right thing on the issue, as eloquently described by Michael Lewis in his book about the 1996 campaign) is beyond selfish. I don't agree with a lot of what McCain stands for, but the is uniquely entitled to make up his own mind about the aftermath of Vietnam.

He is half black. His mother is white. Why does everyone say he's black? He's just as white as he is black.

Probably because if he were driving through Brentwood in a nice car going a mile over the speed limit at night, he'd be pulled over by the LAPD. Which, I think, was what Toni Morrison was writing about.

The topic was the suggestion that Jose Canseco was seeking financing for his movie by threatening to "out" those who didn't.

Someone suggested that this would be the name of the movie:

There Will Be Blood Testing.

His comment that the Clemens hearings are not about saving kids from steroids but about embarrassing Clemens (and if you don't like Clemens--and I don't--you think that's a good thing) are right on. So too the comment about how you hope your favorite player isn't on steroids, but if he is, he'd better hit a lot of home runs for you--exactly. Giants fans loved Barry Bonds because he hit a lot of home runs that won a lot of games. If you look at some of the losers mentioned in the Mitchell Report, who risked their lives and got nothing for it, you see that Bonds at least got something for the drugs.

Of course, so did Lyle Alzado.

There have been times when I've finished watching a great game broadcast on ESPN and the SportsCenter report on the same game focused on some inconsequential detail--a missed call, a ooaching move--and entirely missed the beauty of the sporting contest. The chatter before the conference championships last weekend was dominated by discussions of Randy Moss, including speculation on ESPN Radio between Freddie Coleman and Sal Palontonio about what should be done if his accuser was found to be an extortionist (my wife and I listened to this with our jaws nearing the floor). Luckily, the games themselves were good enough to at least let that topic get overshadowed by actual sports for once.

I also love what Leitch had to say about the Cardinals. Ultimately, what this should be about is the beauty of a sport and the love of a team. Myself, I would rather watch a well-played game involving a team I care about than a Super Bowl between teams that I don't, and I'd rather watch a close game that didn't matter than a blowout for a championship.