Cut and paste alert: Leonard Pitts on PC

The land of the almost free to speak up
By LEONARD PITTS JR.

I'd like to think it was the sangria talking.

But the plain truth is, when Anna said she doesn't find this country to be especially free, it was Anna talking. Granted, her complaint is hardly new. People often grouse about the lack of freedom in the land of the free.

But you see, Anna is from Estonia, a former republic of the old Soviet Union. As in the Evil Empire, world's leading exporter of communism. So when Anna says she feels less free in the United States where she now lives than in the once-totalitarian regime where she was born, well . . . it gets your attention. And when she says Americans sometimes remind her of the gray, fatalistic people who shuffled along under communism, unwilling to think too deeply, say too much or laugh too loudly for fear of offending the State, it is striking, to say the least.

You won't know Anna from Estonia. She is a friend's fiancé, and these insights were not part of some think tank paper but, rather, came in the ebb and flow of table talk one recent night at a Mexican restaurant. Still, I think Anna is onto something.

Americans, she said, love to trumpet their freedom. But it's hard to square that with political correctness that straitjackets communication for fear of giving unintended offense, hair-trigger litigiousness that requires major corporations to treat customers (''Caution: Coffee is hot'') like idiots for fear of being sued, zero tolerance policies and mandatory sentencing guidelines that remove human judgment from human encounters for fear of rendering unequal justice.

You do not have to agree that Americans compare unfavorably with the dull and dispirited Party men and women of a generation ago -- I don't -- to believe Anna has a point. A nation of iconoclasts and originals seems hellbent on becoming a nation of hall monitors. A nation born in revolution has lived to see revolution neutered and co-opted. So much so that even that which poses as a threat to the status quo (hip-hop, for example) nowadays has commercial sponsorship and corporate tie-ins.

It's hard to imagine an Elvis Presley happening in such an era. Or a Malcolm X, a Miles Davis, a Marlon Brando, a Bob Dylan, a Walt Disney, a Betty Friedan or any of the other American originals who poleaxed the 20th century. After all, originality is anathema to uniformity and, make no mistake, uniformity is what we're talking about here, the campaign to regulate language, law, culture and every other aspect of human intercourse in the hope of thereby removing from that intercourse every hint of risk or danger of unequal treatment.

To put it another way: You can hardly accuse the cashier of being rude to you because of your sexual orientation if the cashier is a keypad; you can hardly sue the maker of the vending machine you rocked until it fell over on you if it bears a sign that says rocking this machine will cause it to fall over on you; you can hardly say the judge gave you a harsh sentence because you're Hispanic if the judge had no role in choosing your sentence.

And if this impulse toward uniformity sounds noble in theory, what it leads to in practice is kids kicked out of school because Midol violates the zero-tolerance drug policy, or a parolee getting 25 to life because the pizza slice he stole violates the three-strike law.

And, too, it leads to Anna from Estonia making it a point to show visiting friends a sight they could never see in the old country. They laugh, they point, they whip out cameras and take pictures. Of the Everglades? No. Of Mount Rushmore or Lady Liberty? No.

Anna said they take pictures of the idiot signs. These she said, crack her friends up.

''Caution: Coffee is hot.'' Apparently, elsewhere in the world, you don't need a sign to know this.

winding down

Half anxious, half lackadaisical. So high school. The smudged corner of the more-or-less whiteboard has been boxed in with a countdown for a month, if only anyone could remember if the number is today's or yesterday's or somehow tomorrow's. The May calendar works overtime, verified and rechecked, over and over again. Today is thirteen. We'll get to zero without thinking-- perhaps, some of us, almost literally--today plus two weeks plus finals.

That must mean we have gathered one hundred sixty-two times thus far, just like the big leaguers, though with only one contract among us. So much has happened and so little. "This year," I keep repeating, "has been all about attrition." The losses do add up: six quitters and skippers, one unwilling departure. What-ifs and could-have-beens piled in the corners along with unused notebooks cleaned out of abandoned lockers. But most of us have been here most of the time, both marking time and evolving.

I wonder what we've learned.

Orientation

Two girls and a boy. Two blondes and a redhead. The future moving before my eyes, chasing down the sixth grade hallway on a night when nothing is more exciting than discovering a library and a science lab and a bank of lockers, not if you're eleven, or nearly. Not if you're with your friends.

We walked these halls once before, when this middle school building was brand new and my blonde girl was six. By my count that was ten minutes ago, though the calendar argues differently, and convincingly. She's smart, but not that much of a prodigy. Fast forward to now.

The tile is still gleaming, the glass is polished; the facilities haven't aged, though we have--less, perhaps, than we're about to. Or at least that's the popular attitude. But there's no use in dread, and frankly I'm kind of looking forward. Ignoring for a moment the logistical nightmares and the hated homework and eventually eliminated hyphenation of the boy-who-is-a-friend, focusing on the good parts, new beginnings. My excitable daughter and her plethora of plans: robots! acting! newspaper! band! field hockey! (field hockey? maybe bowling). The grown-ups strike me as knowing what they're doing--and I never give the benefit. And when they had the principal's secretary take the mike among all the certificated and introduce all the other office workers--the women who parents most often talk to, and who really run the show (I speak as the daughter of a superintendent's secretary)--they totally won this heart and mind. We walk out into the night, starved but satisfied, and agree: "This will be good."

Who killed Nicole Brown Simpson? Maybe Roger did it

Ok, maybe not. And maybe Mindy was 16 before the did the dirty deed. And maybe those injections were just vitamins. No matter what, I have a hard time seeing Roger Clemens as the victim.

Roger Clemens apologized Monday for unspecified mistakes in his personal life but denied having an affair with a 15-year-old.

The Daily News reported last week Clemens had a decade-long relationship with country star Mindy McCready that began when she was 15 and an aspiring singer. The newspaper also linked Clemens to former Manhattan bartender Angela Moyer and Paulette Dean Daly, a former wife of champion golfer John Daly.

"Even though these articles contain many false accusations and mistakes, I need to say that I have made mistakes in my personal life for which I am sorry," Clemens said in a statement issued by spokesman Patrick Dorton. "I have apologized to my family and apologize to my fans. Like everyone, I have flaws. I have sometimes made choices which have not been right."

Brian McNamee, Clemens' former trainer, accused him in December's Mitchell Report of using performance-enhancing drugs in 1998, 2000 and 2001, before players and owners agreed to ban them from baseball.

Clemens, a seven-time Cy Young Award winner and 354-game winner, has repeatedly denied using steroids and human growth hormone and filed a defamation suit against Brian McNamee.

"I believe my personal life has nothing to do with the accusations of steroid and HGH use," Clemens said. "I have already made clear that I did not use them. Now, I have been accused of having an improper relationship with a 15-year old girl. Nothing could be further from the truth. This relationship has been twisted and distorted far beyond reality. It is just one of many, many accusations that are utterly false.

"I realize that many people want me to simply confess and apologize for the conduct that I have been accused of, but I cannot confess to, nor apologize for, things I did not do. I have apologized to my family for my mistakes, and having offered this apology to the public, I would ask that you let me and my family deal with these matters in private."

Clemens' lawyer, Rusty Hardin, said Friday he will talk with his client about whether to proceed with the defamation suit following a wave of unpleasant publicity.

"He's getting pummeled," attorney Rusty Hardin said then. "I've never seen somebody get beat up like this. In some ways, I think we're on uncharted ground."

The decision on whether to drop the suit rests with Clemens.

"That's always a decision the client has to make," Hardin said. "That's not the lawyer's decision."

That woman

Is that supposed to be sexist, to say that? Because it's not. Because if Hillary were Him-ary, my rants and refrains would be the same, except for the nouns and the pronouns. And yes, I realize that was Bill's epithet, back when he was fighting his own battles. So much the better.

Because I swear to God.

I swear to God before this is over I am going to have a freaking stroke. I feel my blood pressure rising just as sure as Dick Cheney were talking. Then again, she might as well be Bush!

"'I'm not going to put my lot in with economists, because I know if we get it right, if we actually did it right, if we had a president who used all the tools of the presidency, we would design it in such a way that it would be implemented effectively,' " Clinton said.

I suppose I'm to make a distinction here between the one who can't understand and the one who claims to be smarter, but the disdain for the book-learnin' set an an appeal to those trained to expect no more from their government than twenty-dollars in gas taxes stolen from the future is more than I can stand or excuse. Especially from the woman who knows better but apparently does not care.

" 'Using a red firetruck as a backdrop, Clinton defended her proposal for a summer gas-tax holiday before several hundred supporters at a fire station in Merrillville. She again criticized Obama for focusing on long-term energy solutions at the expense of urgent, if modest, relief for working families.

"It's a false choice, as my opponents and others are trying to say: 'Oh, we can't do anything in the short run to help people; we can only worry about what we do in the long run,'" Clinton said. "People live in the short run. People get up every day and have to fill up their tanks. They have to go to the grocery store."

A few minutes later, Clinton hit Obama again on the issue, saying he did not understand what people are going through. "He's always going on TV, and he's always saying, 'Oh, you know, this is like $20," she said. "For a lot of people, $20 is something, right?' "

Disparaging leadership and the long run? Glorifying the cheap and stupid? Does this not sound all too familiar? And then there's the good-old-girl bit. "He's always going on TV. . ." Because you're what, Hillary, shooting the shit and having a beer in the back of a pickup truck? I wonder if next she'll start aping that laugh. Heh heh heh. Talk about false choices.

I swear. Somebody pass ME a Boilermaker.

Painful reading

Oh, Joe. This only adds to my misery.

I didn't tell him what I should have told him: That I had this feeling that if he stayed in the race he would win 300 or so delegates by Super Tuesday and have maybe a one-in-five chance of forcing a brokered convention.That there was a path ahead that would be extremely painful, but could very well put him and his causes at the top of the Democratic agenda. And that in politics anything can happen-even the possibility that in an open convention with multiple ballots an embattled and exhausted party would turn to him as their nominee. I should have closed my eyes to the pain I saw around me on the campaign bus, including my own. I should have told him emphatically that he should stay in. My regret that I did not do so-that I let John Edwards down-grows with every day that the fight between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continues. ...

I thought we could make a big dent in Ohio by appealing to middle-class working people. The same in places like Kansas, Colorado and the Dakotas. It was possible to make those a dead-heat for all three candidates in terms of delegate wins. And today, as I write this, I realize we might have had as many as 500 delegates heading into Pennsylvania and North Carolina, two states that would probably be strong for Edwards.

That would mean Edwards, Obama and Clinton would go into the convention without any of them close to sealing the nomination. You would have had months of Obama and Clinton banging away at each other, with Edwards able to come across to weary Democrats as a welcome, fresh face.? You'd have the electability argument begin to play to Edwards' advantage, since he always did well against McCain in polling. These possibilities and more played through my mind.

Caption Contest

So it's not every day that one's classroom is visited by envoys from the planet Pig Latin. Or whatever the heck that was. I suppose the fact that I couldn't help but smile as I directed the erstwhile bookcover to the trash might mean that I'm in the right job. Or more likely, as the photographic evidence suggests, it's solidly 4th quarter--May tomorrow!--and we're all beginning to lose it.

her current dilemma

Slipped in, glossed over, presumed by both parties. One of those off-hand remarks that comes back to haunt, working its way to the surface, to consciousness, as I retrace and go over the words I've already heard.

"Of course, they don't have any insurance."

Of course.

I must admit I was hoping. Against hope, constant long-suffering companion. They're small businesses owners, so it was a toss-up, maybe at best, and Mom quite pre-existing. Maybe she's the only one without. What a poster family for the politicians; every wedge issue under the same roof. I make a mental note to ask my student aide--a citizen, for those scoring at home--if she's registered, make rude gestures towards Washington and passing campaign buses in my head. Go back to grasping at straws.

Because this child needs to be both home health care for her mother in the early afternoons and finish the final few weeks of high school. She doesn't know the rule about asking for forgiveness instead of permission, so she came to us for help out of her untenable situation instead of just skipping. And the only official word the counselor and I have squeezed out of The Office (the locus of authority, too maddening to be a sitcom), so far is, "we'll look into it." For 28 more days, I'll bet, until the calendar resolves their end of the dilemma.

Dear girl. You'll graduate. Have mom write--oh, lord: which arm did they take?--a note. Do what you need to do.

Favre watch: this little piggy ran all the way home

Courtesy Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel columnist Bob Wolfley

Among the interviews Brett Favre did in the last few days was one with Steve Mariucci of the NFL Network.

That interview aired before the start of the NFL draft on Saturday.

Mariucci was Favre's position coach in Green Bay from 1992 to '95.

The interview touched on Favre's decision to retire, what he does at his Hattiesburg home and his relationship with his dad.

Mariucci asked what Favre plans to do in the immediate future as well as five years from now.

"No plans, really," Favre said. "I've had people say, 'You have to have a plan.' I have kind of gone through life without a plan, really."

According to an Associated Press report, when Favre and his wife Deanna were in New York last week they saw a Broadway play, "Jersey Boys," and, according to Matt Hasselbeck, Favre had his first facial and a pedicure.

Hasselbeck also was in New York and spent time with his former teammate.

"He'll probably kill me for this," said the Seattle quarterback, referring to sharing that information with the press. "It was something he and his wife Deanna did together," Hasselbeck said. "I feel sorry for the woman who did the pedicure."

Krugman: Bush Made Permanent

Bush Made Permanent
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times

As the designated political heir of a deeply unpopular president - according to Gallup, President Bush has the highest disapproval rating recorded in 70 years of polling - John McCain should have little hope of winning in November. In fact, however, current polls show him roughly tied with either Democrat.

In part this may reflect the Democrats' problems. For the most part, however, it probably reflects the perception, eagerly propagated by Mr. McCain's many admirers in the news media, that he's very different from Mr. Bush - a responsible guy, a straight talker.

But is this perception at all true? During the 2000 campaign people said much the same thing about Mr. Bush; those of us who looked hard at his policy proposals, especially on taxes, saw the shape of things to come.

And a look at what Mr. McCain says about taxes shows the same combination of irresponsibility and double-talk that, back in 2000, foreshadowed the character of the Bush administration.

The McCain tax plan contains three main elements.

First, Mr. McCain proposes making almost all of the Bush tax cuts, which are currently scheduled to expire at the end of 2010, permanent. (He proposes reinstating the inheritance tax, albeit at a very low rate.)

Second, he wants to eliminate the alternative minimum tax, which was originally created to prevent the wealthy from exploiting tax loopholes, but has begun to hit the upper middle class.

Third, he wants to sharply reduce tax rates on corporate profits.

According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, the overall effect of the McCain tax plan would be to reduce federal revenue by more than $5 trillion over 10 years. That's a lot of revenue loss - enough to pose big problems for the government's solvency.

But before I get to that, let's look at what I found truly revealing: the McCain campaign's response to the Tax Policy Center's assessment. The response, written by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the former head of the Congressional Budget Office, criticizes the center for adopting "unrealistic Congressional budgeting conventions." What's that about?

Well, Congress "scores" tax legislation by comparing estimates of the revenue that would be collected if the legislation passed with estimates of the revenue that would be collected under current law. In this case that means comparing the McCain plan with what would happen if the Bush tax cuts expired on schedule.

Mr. Holtz-Eakin wants the McCain plan compared, instead, with "current policy" - which he says means maintaining tax rates at today's levels.

But here's the thing: the reason the Bush tax cuts are set to expire is that the Bush administration engaged in a game of deception. It put an expiration date on the tax cuts, which it never intended to honor, as a way to hide those tax cuts' true cost.

The McCain campaign wants us to accept the success of that deception as a fact of life. Mr. Holtz-Eakin is saying, in effect, "We're not engaged in any new irresponsibility - we're just perpetuating the Bush administration's irresponsibility. That doesn't count."

It's the sort of fiscal double-talk that has been a Bush administration hallmark. In any case, it offers no answer to the principal point raised by the Tax Policy Center analysis, which has nothing to do with scoring: the McCain tax plan would leave the federal government with far too little revenue to cover its expenses, leading to huge budget deficits unless there were deep cuts in spending.

And Mr. McCain has said nothing realistic about how he would close the giant budget gap his tax cuts would produce - a gap so large that eliminating it would require cutting Social Security benefits by three-quarters, eliminating Medicare, or something equivalently drastic. Talking, as Mr. Holtz-Eakin does, about fighting waste and reforming procurement doesn't cut it.

Now, Mr. McCain isn't unique in making promises he has no way to pay for - the same can be said, to some extent, of the Democratic candidates. But Mr. McCain's plan is far more irresponsible than anything the Democrats are proposing, and the difference in degree is so large as to be a difference in kind. Mr. McCain's budget talk simply doesn't make sense.

So what are Mr. McCain's real intentions?

If truth be told, the McCain tax plan doesn't seem to embody any coherent policy agenda. Instead, it looks like a giant exercise in pandering - an attempt to mollify the GOP's right wing, and never mind if it makes any sense.

The impression that Mr. McCain's tax talk is all about pandering is reinforced by his proposal for a summer gas tax holiday - a measure that would, in fact, do little to help consumers, although it would boost oil industry profits.

More and more, Mr. McCain sounds like a man who will say anything to become president.

$10,000

"Ms. P, do you think I'm asking for too much?" This from a soon-to-graduate Senior.

I know the answer without even hearing the situation: yes.

"What's that?"

"I told my parents when they go back to Mexico this summer they should sign the apartment over to me, leave me a car, and give me $10,000."

I feel the look come over my face that I have given her once for every dollar: "How much do you make in a week?"

"I don't get paid every week." She's guileless, just literal.

I don't snap but close by eyes: "When you get paid, how much do you make?" She's clearing about a thousand a month, seems unambitious for more.

"And how much is the rent? (And the electric and the gas and the groceries and such. Not to mention the four-dollars-per-gallon-by-then.) Have you done the math?" Though the answer is obvious. "You could never make it on that kind of money alone." Too bad the personal finance requirement doesn't kick in until next year, I think. Not that it would matter.

"That's why they need to leave me ten thousand."

"No, they really don't." And her eleventh grade friend and I are matching metronomes of negative head-shaking with the emphasizing eye-roll. "No, dear. Just, no."

Unlike, perhaps, the grown-ups down the hall I don't leap to, "Do they even have it?" They could, though easily is not the word. Nobody saves like these families, at least not in my experience. The discipline is a wonder to me with my typical American habits. Teenagers--unlike this one--with a second job procured just for cash to be stashed for a concrete and then achieved goal. Cars paid in full. Homes. Real estate investments (I'm serious). Four-wheelers. Mothers with bank accounts and extra thousands at home in a box, much to my vaguely worried consternation. "She knows it'd be insured in the bank, right?" I pass surreptitious messages home.

So this girl, good grief. Is she missing a gene? Has she been here too long? Entitlement must be contagious. The new American dream: to be supported by one's parents in the circumstances to which one has become accustomed, no matter the cost. Oblivious all along.

Frank Rich: How McCain Lost in PA

This election should be cake! But it's not gonna be.

It shouldn't be close! But it will be.

These are the refrains I'm constantly ranting, here, six long months out. Stupid people. I'm likely to mutter. I mean, the old man is nuts! And people are likely to vote for him based on some misbegotten reputation without even knowing or caring what he's saying he'd do. Iran! 100 years! The court! Taxes! And I spill out a whole slew of exclamation points, throw up my arms, shake my head. Six more months, oh God. And then there's Her. So distasteful, worse all the time. Talk about clinging and bitter. And I am too skeptical to be an Obamabot, but he's the best that's left. I cross my fingers. He worries me despite the remarkably good parts. Get fired up already, dude.

So reading this was a little calming, is what I'm saying.

How McCain Lost in Pennsylvania
By FRANK RICH

IT’S a nightmare. It’s the Bataan Death March. It’s mutually assured Armageddon. “Both of them are already losing the general to John McCain,” declared a Newsweek columnist last month, predicting that the election “may already be over” by the time the Democrats anoint a nominee.

Not so fast. If we’ve learned any new rule in the 2008 campaign, it’s this: Once our news culture sets a story in stone, chances are it will crumble. But first it must be recycled louder and louder 24/7, as if sheer repetition will transmute conventional wisdom into reality.

When the Pennsylvania returns rained down Tuesday night, the narrative became clear fast. The Democrats’ exit polls spelled disaster: Some 25 percent of the primary voters said they would defect to Mr. McCain or not vote at all if Barack Obama were the nominee. How could the party possibly survive this bitter, perhaps race-based civil war?

But as the doomsday alarm grew shrill, few noticed that on this same day in Pennsylvania, 27 percent of Republican primary voters didn’t just tell pollsters they would defect from their party’s standard-bearer; they went to the polls, gas prices be damned, to vote against Mr. McCain. Though ignored by every channel I surfed, there actually was a G.O.P. primary on Tuesday, open only to registered Republicans. And while it was superfluous in determining that party’s nominee, 220,000 Pennsylvania Republicans (out of their total turnout of 807,000) were moved to cast ballots for Mike Huckabee or, more numerously, Ron Paul. That’s more voters than the margin (215,000) that separated Hillary Clinton and Mr. Obama.

Those antiwar Paul voters are all potential defectors to the Democrats in November. Mr. Huckabee’s religious conservatives, who rejected Mr. McCain throughout the primary season, might also bolt or stay home. Given that the Democratic ticket beat Bush-Cheney in Pennsylvania by 205,000 votes in 2000 and 144,000 votes in 2004, these are 220,000 voters the G.O.P. can ill-afford to lose. Especially since there are now a million more registered Democrats than Republicans in Pennsylvania. (These figures don’t even include independents, who couldn’t vote in either primary on Tuesday and have been migrating toward the Democrats since 2006.)

For such a bitterly divided party, the Democrats hardly show signs of clinical depression. The last debate, however dumb, had the most viewers of any so far. The rise in turnout and new voters is all on the Democratic side. Even before its deathbed transfusion of new donations, the Clinton campaign trounced the McCain campaign in fund-raising by 2.5 to 1. (The Obama-McCain ratio is 3 to 1.)

On Tuesday, a Democrat won the first round of a special Congressional election in Mississippi, even though the national G.O.P. outspent the Democrats by more than double and President Bush carried this previously safe Republican district by 25 percentage points in 2004. A Gallup poll last week found Mr. Bush’s national disapproval rating the worst (69 percent) for any president in Gallup’s entire 70-year history. For all his (and Mr. McCain’s) persistent sightings of “victory” in Iraq, the percentage of Americans calling the war a mistake (63) also set a new record.

“I’m thrilled to be anywhere with high ratings,” Mr. Bush joked on Monday night, when he popped up like Waldo on the NBC game show “Deal or No Deal” to root for an Army captain who was a contestant. But it turns out that not even cash giveaways to veterans can induce Americans to set eyes on this president. “Deal or No Deal” drew an audience 19 percent below its season average. The best deal for Mr. McCain would be for Mr. Bush to disappear into the witness protection program.

But surely, it could be argued, the mud in the Democratic race will be as much a drag on that party’s eventual nominee as the incumbent president is on the G.O.P. ticket. The counterargument, advanced by Mrs. Clinton in justifying her “kitchen sink” attacks on Mr. Obama, is that the Democrats are better off being tested now by raising all the issues the Republicans will. It’s a fair point. The Wright, Rezko, Ayers, “bittergate” and flag-pin firestorms will all be revived by the opposition come fall. Voters should indeed see how Mr. Obama deals with them, just as Democrats also need to gauge how the flash points of race and gender will play out in the crunch.

The flaw in Mrs. Clinton’s refrain is her claim that she, unlike her challenger, has already been so fully vetted that her candidacy can offer no more unpleasant surprises. “I have a lot of baggage, and everybody has rummaged through it for years,” she says. Perhaps the delusion that she has a get-out-of-scandal-free card comes from her unexpected endorsement from Richard Mellon Scaife, the nutty Pittsburgh newspaper publisher who once spent a fortune trying to implicate the Clintons in the “murder” of Vince Foster. Or perhaps she thinks Fox News will call off the dogs now that her campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, is appearing in network promos endorsing its “fair and balanced” shtick.

But the incessant praise for Mrs. Clinton’s resilience as a candidate by Karl Rove, Pat Buchanan and William Bennett reveals just how eager they are to take her on. The dealings of the Bill Clinton post-presidency, barely alluded to by Mr. Obama in his own halting bouts of negative campaigning, have simply been put on hold while the Democrats slug it out. Close observers of The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post and Fox News can already read Rupert Murdoch’s tea leaves, and not just those from China. “Clinton Foundation Secrets” was the title of The Journal’s lead editorial on Friday profiling a rogues’ gallery of shady donors.

Mrs. Clinton’s supporters would argue that she’s so battle-tested she could fend it all off. She’s unlikely to get the chance. For all the nail-biting suspense being ginned up, the probable denouement remains unchanged. When the primary juggernaut finally ends — following picturesque day trips to Puerto Rico and Guam — the superdelegates will likely succumb to the math of Mr. Obama’s virtually insurmountable pledged-delegate total.

There’s also a way that two super-superdelegates, the duo on the Democrats’ last winning ticket, could trigger a faster finale. Bill Clinton could do so by undermining his wife once more with another ill-timed, red-faced eruption. Al Gore could possibly do so with a well-timed endorsement before his party gets mired in yet another Florida recount.

There’s only one way this can end badly, no matter how long it lasts. That would be if the loser, whoever it is, turns sore and fails to rally his or her troops around the winner. It’s all about “the way the loser loses,” as the Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel, who is neutral in the race, likes to say. While the Clintons are capable of such kamikaze narcissism, their selfish desire to preserve their own political future, if not the party’s, may be a powerful check on those impulses.

On the way to the finish line, the prolonged primary race, far from destroying the Democratic candidates, may do more insidious damage to the Republican nominee, lulling his campaign into an unjustified complacency. The Democrats should “take their time — don’t rush,” the McCain aide Mark Salter joked last week. Yet his candidate, as the conservative blogger Ross Douthat pointed out, keeps bumping up against a 45 percent ceiling in the polls even now, when the Democrats are ostensibly in ruins.

Mr. McCain is not only burdened with the most despised president in his own 71-year lifetime, but he’s getting none of the seasoning that he, no less than the Democrats, needs to compete in the fall. Age is as much an issue as race and gender in this campaign. Mr. McCain will have to prove not merely that he can keep to the physical rigors of his schedule and fend off investigations of his ties to lobbyists and developers. He also must show he can think and speak fluently about the domestic issues that are gripping the country. Picture him debating either Democrat about health care, the mortgage crisis, stagnant middle-class wages, rice rationing at Costco. It’s not pretty.

Last week found Mr. McCain visiting economically stricken and “forgotten” communities (forgotten by Republicans, that is) in what his campaign bills as the “It’s Time for Action Tour.” It kicked off in Selma, Ala., a predominantly black town where he confirmed his maverick image by drawing an almost exclusively white audience.

The “action” the candidate outlined in the text of his speeches may strike many voters as running the gamut from inaction to inertia. Mr. McCain vowed that he would not “roll out a long list of policy initiatives.” (He can’t, given his long list of tax cuts.) He said he would not bring back lost jobs, lost wages or lost houses. But, as The Birmingham News reported, this stand against government bailouts for struggling Americans didn’t prevent his campaign from helping itself to free labor underwritten by taxpayers: inmates from a local jail were recruited to set up tables and chairs for a private fund-raiser.

The Democrats’ unending brawl may be supplying prime time with a goodly share of melodrama right now, but there will be laughter aplenty once the Republican campaign that’s not ready for prime time emerges from the wings.

Teenage wasteland

It's a shame, really.

Loving parents. All the comforts of home. Anything you need on a silver platter. A free college education there for the taking... if only you would put a tenth of the effort that you give to baseball.

I knew the teenage years would be a parenting challenge. After all, I was once one myself. I think I was prepared to deal with the threats posed by sex, drugs and, well, maybe not rock and roll so much (I'm a rocker myself). Besides, my own upbringing gives me a unique perspective on the father-son relationship.

And for 14 years we've enjoyed the bond I've always dreamed of. Constant companions. Shared passion for all things Packers, Dodgers and Lakers. A common appreciation for a good cheeseburger. Playing catch.

Sadly, it has changed. Maybe I shouldn't have let/made you ride RAGBRAI last year. I was so proud of you. I still am, but, buddy, where have I gone wrong?

If there's a benefit of standardized tests, it's that it reveals potential. You've got it. But you've got to want it. You've got to want it for yourself more than I want it for you.

You go to school at 6:30 in the morning to lift weights... every day. Your baseball starting streak rivals Brett Favre's. You've never missed a meal. Your work ethic is impressive. How it doesn't carry over into the classroom is mind boggling.

It's your life, and the choices you make will determine your future. I'll love you regardless. Meanwhile, your choices are making life miserable for all of us while throwing away your future.

You've got to want it.

Brett on Dave, Favre on Madden

How can you not love this man?

modern technology, old-fashioned talk

The conversation is minimal, a gesture. Thirty messages, according to Gmail, that would up add up to a few minutes of in-person talk. It's something to do, more than anything. A way to pass the endless hospital day. And probably I'm just the person in her address book who doesn't risk detention for replying between the hours of 7:30 and 3. I don't make more of it than that, but I'm glad to be in touch, and I talk to her of teacherly things.

Does the school know where you are? Have you asked for your homework? I tie up official loose ends, try to pave her way back. She doesn't know how long she'll be sitting and translating, sitting and waiting, sitting alone while her mother is sleeping. Time doesn't go by in a hospital room, not in my experience. So she gets out that phone, types with her thumbs.

Back in the school, we've become the cellphone gestapo, a Spring-time crackdown recently put into place. I've collected two in four days, addicted kids inadvertently fidgeting with their half-grown-up toys, neither one disrupting, one not even in class, but the new policy is clear, and that's the stupid breaks. If they knew I am occasionally replying to one of their own who is out-of-school texting I've a hunch they might stage a mild, irrational protest, but she's asked me not to tell and besides, as so many things, it's none of their business. So the hush-hush how-are-you continues.

It's not all serious. At lunch I share the rare miracle of my non-cafeteria meal and she replies with, "Yay, me! hospital food!" but declines my offered delivery. We joke a little, touch base, maintain a semblance of normal. But on Thursday, hours and hours pass after my morning, "How's it going today?"

"sorry it took me this long to write back," No sorry, I mentally reply.

"but was busy with my mom. last nite she had a meltdown!!" And she goes on to explain. I do what I can in twenty-five words or less, for this girl I so feel for. Offer my hopes for a better tomorrow, await the next dispatch.

"my fingers r crossed," she says.

Mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore

Alright. I've had enough. I didn't want to appear sexist, which I'm not, so I've been easy on Hillary Clinton. But her latest ad in Pennsylvania, which includes Osama bin Laden and quotes Harry Truman, is quite enough.

If Deanna Favre had her attitude, she'd be prepared to step into the starting quarterback job for the Green Bay Packers. Give me a friggin break!

Her health care plan is better -- though still not up to the John Edwards standard -- but Barack Obama has what it takes. Am I comfortable with him answering the phone at 3 a.m.? Sure, but I don't expect him to take my call.

This country needs inspiration like never before. John McCain and Hillary Clinton are about as inspiring as melba toast. I'm hitching my saddle to the Obama movement.

P.S. Not that I have any say in the matter, but Bill Richardson as VP, Joe Biden as Sec of State and John Edwards as Attorney General would please me greatly.

Cut and Paste: Michael Moore

Friends,

I don't get to vote for President this primary season. I live in Michigan. The party leaders (both here and in D.C.) couldn't get their act together, and thus our votes will not be counted.

So, if you live in Pennsylvania, can you do me a favor? Will you please cast my vote -- and yours -- on Tuesday for Senator Barack Obama?

I haven't spoken publicly 'til now as to who I would vote for, primarily for two reasons: 1) Who cares?; and 2) I (and most people I know) don't give a rat's ass whose name is on the ballot in November, as long as there's a picture of JFK and FDR riding a donkey at the top of the ballot, and the word "Democratic" next to the candidate's name.

Seriously, I know so many people who don't care if the name under the Big "D" is Dancer, Prancer, Clinton or Blitzen. It can be Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Barry Obama or the Dalai Lama.

Well, that sounded good last year, but over the past two months, the actions and words of Hillary Clinton have gone from being merely disappointing to downright disgusting. I guess the debate last week was the final straw. I've watched Senator Clinton and her husband play this game of appealing to the worst side of white people, but last Wednesday, when she hurled the name "Farrakhan" out of nowhere, well that's when the silly season came to an early end for me. She said the "F" word to scare white people, pure and simple. Of course, Obama has no connection to Farrakhan. But, according to Senator Clinton, Obama's pastor does -- AND the "church bulletin" once included a Los Angeles Times op-ed from some guy with Hamas! No, not the church bulletin!

This sleazy attempt to smear Obama was brilliantly explained the following night by Stephen Colbert. He pointed out that if Obama is supported by Ted Kennedy, who is Catholic, and the Catholic Church is led by a Pope who was in the Hitler Youth, that can mean only one thing: OBAMA LOVES HITLER!

Yes, Senator Clinton, that's how you sounded. Like you were nuts. Like you were a bigot stoking the fires of stupidity. How sad that I would ever have to write those words about you. You have devoted your life to good causes and good deeds. And now to throw it all away for an office you can't win unless you smear the black man so much that the superdelegates cry "Uncle (Tom)" and give it all to you.

But that can't happen. You cast your die when you voted to start this bloody war. When you did that you were like Moses who lost it for a moment and, because of that, was prohibited from entering the Promised Land.

How sad for a country that wanted to see the first woman elected to the White House. That day will come -- but it won't be you. We'll have to wait for the current Democratic governor of Kansas to run in 2016 (you read it here first!).

There are those who say Obama isn't ready, or he's voted wrong on this or that. But that's looking at the trees and not the forest. What we are witnessing is not just a candidate but a profound, massive public movement for change. My endorsement is more for Obama The Movement than it is for Obama the candidate.

That is not to take anything away from this exceptional man. But what's going on is bigger than him at this point, and that's a good thing for the country. Because, when he wins in November, that Obama Movement is going to have to stay alert and active. Corporate America is not going to give up their hold on our government just because we say so. President Obama is going to need a nation of millions to stand behind him.

I know some of you will say, 'Mike, what have the Democrats done to deserve our vote?' That's a damn good question. In November of '06, the country loudly sent a message that we wanted the war to end. Yet the Democrats have done nothing. So why should we be so eager to line up happily behind them?

I'll tell you why. Because I can't stand one more friggin' minute of this administration and the permanent, irreversible damage it has done to our people and to this world. I'm almost at the point where I don't care if the Democrats don't have a backbone or a kneebone or a thought in their dizzy little heads. Just as long as their name ain't "Bush" and the word "Republican" is not beside theirs on the ballot, then that's good enough for me.

I, like the majority of Americans, have been pummeled senseless for 8 long years. That's why I will join millions of citizens and stagger into the voting booth come November, like a boxer in the 12th round, all bloodied and bruised with one eye swollen shut, looking for the only thing that matters -- that big "D" on the ballot.

Don't get me wrong. I lost my rose-colored glasses a long time ago.

It's foolish to see the Democrats as anything but a nicer version of a party that exists to do the bidding of the corporate elite in this country. Any endorsement of a Democrat must be done with this acknowledgement and a hope that one day we will have a party that'll represent the people first, and laws that allow that party an equal voice.

Finally, I want to say a word about the basic decency I have seen in Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton continues to throw the Rev. Wright up in his face as part of her mission to keep stoking the fears of White America. Every time she does this I shout at the TV, "Say it, Obama! Say that when she and her husband were having marital difficulties regarding Monica Lewinsky, who did she and Bill bring to the White House for 'spiritual counseling?' THE REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT!"

But no, Obama won't throw that at her. It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be decent. She's been through enough hurt. And so he remains silent and takes the mud she throws in his face.

That's why the crowds who come to see him are so large. That's why he'll take us down a more decent path. That's why I would vote for him if Michigan were allowed to have an election.

But the question I keep hearing is... 'can he win? Can he win in November?' In the distance we hear the siren of the death train called the Straight Talk Express. We know it's possible to hear the words "President McCain" on January 20th. We know there are still many Americans who will never vote for a black man. Hillary knows it, too. She's counting on it.

Pennsylvania, the state that gave birth to this great country, has a chance to set things right. It has not had a moment to shine like this since 1787 when our Constitution was written there. In that Constitution, they wrote that a black man or woman was only "three fifths" human. On Tuesday, the good people of Pennsylvania have a chance for redemption.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MichaelMoore.com
MMFlint@aol.com

I knew I felt something

Having just made it to bed, I was awake for the follow-up shaking. Checked the clock for later confirmation and then returned to focusing on getting my whole four-and-one-quarter hours in. Do I qualify as a Californian now?

Another quake rumbled early this morning
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH STAFF
04/21/2008
At least five small aftershocks to Friday's earthquake rumbled through Southern Illinois this weekend, including a moderate quake measuring a 4.5 magnitude at 12:38 a.m. this morning.

a snapshot

"So you realize," I say, as I take tickets and check their names off the list of prom-goers, "that part of the price of your admission is a picture with me before you leave tonight."

"It's a must," comes the reply. And we smile and laugh, but I mean it, dead serious. That, beyond the terms of my contract, is exactly why I'm here. Souvenirs and remembrance. Tokens from the end of the line.

I am not the only teacher, of course, with a camera wedged into an evening bag. I am not the only teacher who will be asked to stop and smile. Maybe no one is more sentimental than a high school senior. Except for, maybe, me.

This year's graduates do not, perhaps, represent my greatest accomplishments as an educator, if such things, as the bureaucrats tell us, are measured in test scores and GPA. But considering that they have witnessed nearly ever minute I have spent as an ESL teacher--all the other years,working in junior high and community college and at the university were other lives--it seems fair to say that what they believe me to be is what I am.

To have spent so much time together may or may not have been the educational ideal, but it has been what we've had. They were everything from my proving ground, to my 8-3 homeschool, to my experiment in whether familiarity does actually breed contempt (not always, or at least not every day). I believe that they think that I know things, and that they've learned from me--both about life and about school. I believe that they think that I try. That I'm trustworthy. That I am too nice except when I am in a mood and too disorganized always (though I've never actually lost anything). That I will do anything I can. For better or worse our six years of experiences have made me the teacher I am, so far, so of course I wanted that picture. Not to remember--I'll never forget--but to see myself through their eyes.

Missing Out

"Well, did you feel that earthquake?" I asked hopefully to the boy so disappointed to have slept through the big topic of discussion.

"What earthquake?"

"The aftershock, the one at 10:15."

"Are you serious?" he whines with the tone of a carnival-goer short of money for his tickets.

I nod half-apologetically. Smile because I can't help it. Oh, high school, all about being either with the in-crowd or the out, even when it comes to potential natural disasters.