What is the African American population of Joe Wilson's district? Also, what is the percentage of his constituents who moved to South Carolina from elsewhere? I suspect that 14 months from now, the turnout of groups will make a strong showing of unhappiness with Joe Wilson's behaviors.

The disrespect Wilson showed a sitting president was profound and unprecedented. The image of that apoplectic white man shouting and pointing his finger at an African American president will not easily be ignored or forgotten.

... is for FOX to give us a space drama starring a misanthropic, pill-popping, genius astronaut with the deepest soulful blue eyes and a passion for solving astrophysical mysteries. Throw in a bunch of cute sidekick astronauts strutting around the space station and lots of wicked banter with the sexy lady honcho back in Houston and it could be a winner.

If it starred Hugh Laurie, I would watch that show in a heartbeat.

The simple long-term solution for the problem Voinovich describes is the transformation of the population of the South. This is already underway as more Northern African-Americans, Hispanics, and Indian-Americans migrate into the region. These groups, supplemented by large influxes of highly educated immigrants and white professionals, are already making a notable difference in the way some parts of the South vote and behave.

Obama's success in Virginia and North Carolina is a harbinger of the big changes to come all across the South. The old South that backed the bigoted, anti-science, gay-bashing, xenophobic, and anti-women policies of the Republican party is shrivelling rapidly. The GOP will have to change to survive at all as a national party. Rush, Newt, Sanford, Palin and their ilk will wither away soon enough. And a New South, cleansed of the disease of bigotry and Republicanism, will rise again.

The demographic changes that Greener identifies are not the core problems facing the 21st Century Republican party. The real issue is that the GOP over the last 50 years has drifted steadily into a morass of blind racial and ethnic bigotry that began with the Nixonian Southern Strategy (the shameful behavior of Republican southern senators in the Sotomayor hearing was only the latest example of this).

To this poisonous mix, the GOP has added a noxious stew of anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-working people, anti-Constitution positions that have alienated the vast majority of the American public from its principles. The vile rantings of media bigmouths like Limbaugh, Hannity, Kristol and Buchannan have been incorporated into the nonsensical rhetoric of GOP political leaders like Gringich, Boehner, Kantor, and Palin. Top it off with the sexual shennanigans of Christian extremist hypocrites like Sanford and Ensign and you have the perfect recipe for the extinction of the Republican party.

To turn this situation around, the GOP needs to promote policies that give affordable health care coverage to all Americans, get the government out of the bedrooms and private lives of our citizens, establish meaningful curbs on the excesses of the financial services industry, safeguard the environment, and foster an engaged and open foreign policy. When that happens, Americans will start to vote Republican again.

Of course Coburn's reference to Ricky Ricardo is racial stereotyping of the worst order. It assumes that everyone of Hispanic heritage -- from cops to college instructors to window washers to Supreme Court nominees -- speaks with a laughable accent and mangles the English language. Coburn clearly couldn't help himself when he blurted out this undignified comment to Judge Sotomayor -- he is hobbled by his limited outlook and racist upbringing.

As for the future of the Republican Party, I hope these hearings stretch on for many more days. The more the windbags and bigots that form the GOP leadership are exposed to a wide audience, the sooner the party will shrivel to its tiny base as a regional party with no national influence or importance. This is the inevitable outcome of the racist Nixonian "Southern Strategy" and is a consumation devoutly to be wished by anyone who cherishes the United States of America.

So over the past eight days we have had the following gems from the GOP:

-- The light-in-the-loafers Gov. Sanford went on a walkabout off the grid in Argentina without informing his staff, his Lt Gov, or his family;

-- Tricky Dick spoke from the grave to assert that abortion was fine for interracial babies;

-- Sen. Ensign, who couldn't keep it in his pants, admitted to diddling the wife of his staffer;

-- Gov. Palin got into a trailer-worthy spitting match with a comedian.

I can't wait to see what is next up from these clowns. The Republicans are truly the gift that keeps on giving.

Rather than a movie about the 2008 campaign, I want to see an in-depth treatment of the upbringing and life of Barack Obama's mother, Ann Dunham. I think her story combines elements of striving, restlessness, incipient feminism, dreamy internationalism, and frustrated nobility. This is the great American story of our time. For the cast I would suggest the following:

Grandma "Toot" -- Reese Witherspoon. Able to play the plucky Rosie the Riveter as a young woman as well as the resourceful striving bank VP dealing with a difficult husband and a wayward daughter.

Grandpa Dunham -- Dennis Quaid. Has the right combination of native charm, haunted disappointment, and deep-down decency.

Ann Dunham -- Abigail Breslin as the idealistic little girl who grows into Rachel Weisz as the adventurous, dreamy and optimistic young woman who gave birth to a president.

Barack Obama Sr. -- Idris Alba would be perfect to convey a combination of intelligent charisma and instability in Ann's first husband.

Soetero -- Chow Yun Fat as Ann's second husband, captured in the tragedy of corruption and deceit in the Philippines.

Little Barack -- Jaden Smith (Will Smith's son).