I love March Madness. I have trouble leaving the house the first couple of days. What always kills me is the insistence of trotting Billy Packer out each year. It's almost perverse stubborness. There are howls from all over the country-we hate him! And yet, there he is on final four weekend, in high pissy form. Maybe we'd be disappointed if he wasn't there and we couldn't whine about it.

I have been completely amazed that throughout the entire Gonzales fiasco that nobody in Congress or the Senate questioned how a 33 year old graduate of a fourth tier religious law school had firing and hiring authority regarding career justice department lawyers. Some of these lawyers have over 150 federal trials under their belts and I don't think she has ever been in a courtroom. How was that not questioned during the Gonzales hearings?

Every so often Maureen Dowd writes an interesting and insighful column. It always makes me feel like some frustrated parent, thinking " now see? See what you can do when you try?" Those times are getting increasingly rare. I told my brothers one night that I wish an electric shock could be administered every time she got four letters into typing "emasculated." They charmingly and maturely think that she just needs to get laid.

Has anybody pointed out to Focus on the Family that Palin will be leaving her five children, as well as her husband to head out and campaign non-stop? Has anyone pointed out to them that John and Cindy McCain live apart most of the time? What if they win? Does Palin move her whole dog and pony show to Washington DC? Does Cindy McCain move full time into the White House? Why does anybody pander to James Dobson? They are all completely removed from reality.

I wish everyone would stop pretending that the choice of Palin is about wooing the female vote. It is only about wooing the evangelical vote. And if Palin is such a super, upstanding mother, why would she put her poor daughter in the position of being scrutinized on a national level. She had to have known this would happen and put her ambitions over her child's well-being. Sarah Palin is only 44. She has plenty of time to pursue national politics. Stop blaming the frenzy on the media, and point the blame directly to Palin.

This is decidedly relevant. I reflected this morning, as I drove my daughter to school in her little Catholic school uniform, that I am bone weary of being told by these people that I am not a "values voter." John McCain sold his soul to Focus on the "Family" and I say pile on. Obama has to take the high road, the rest of us don't.

This won't make one speck of difference to the base. Those wacky evangelicals say whatever they please and no one of that ilk even raises an eyebrow. The people that find this offensive have no intention of voting for McCain.

The Republican reaction to this story will be, huh. Now, let's talk about Obama calling Palin a pig and wanting to have sex with kindergartners. It's a scandal a week with this administration and no one seems to pay a lick of attention to it.

Hey, last week he talked about the evil "media." I'm not sure what that makes him.

I loved Case Histories, so based on this review I went directly to Amazon. Only to find out that the book reviewed is an import and was $100.00! Will it be released in the US soon?

If McCain is so solidly convinced that Palin is ready to be president if necessary, he should send her to debate Obama in his place and he can go solve the economic meltdown. That would be mightily entertaining.

I would love to read or hear from someone, anyone from Alaska who could explain how on earth she was elected governor. Presumably she had to give interviews and hold press conferences? Anyone up there to enlighten us?

I'm wary of the thread of " I almost feel sorry for Sarah Palin". Have no sympathy for her. She is ferociously ambitious and aggressively ignorant. Just what we need; another person in the White House who oozes contempt for the eggheads that read and went to Ivy league colleges. She started Karl Rove level whispering campaigns to get elected the mayor of Wasila! She lies often and easily. She left her 3 day old downs syndrome baby and went back to work. She outed her pregnant 17 year old daughter and her hapless boyfriend to the international press. All of this in the name of Jesus and country. She's completely loathsome and I truly hope that Joe Biden takes it to her on every level.

If the governor and her first dude allow their poor daughter to yet again become a tool in the presidential campaign, they are infinitely more disgusting than even imagined. Please, could the evangelical women who say that Sarah P. "speaks to them" weigh in on this. I so hope this isn't true. it turns my stomach.

There's probably very little left to say about Palin. My 12 year old daughter asked if I thought they would plant a microphone in her beehive for the debate. What I do know is that she has motivated a level of political rage in women that we haven't seen for years. Scandal fatigue from the Bushies simply shut a lot of people down. Palin has woken people up as to the huge risk McCain is taking, the danger he is putting the country in, just to placate Focus on the Family. The choice has never been about women, it's always been about the evangelical vote. Biden needs to come on strong and hard and ignore the whining about being mean to a girl.