obama

Today's joke:

A woman was walking on the beach when she came upon a lamp. She picked it up and rubbed it, and, of course, a genie popped out. "I will give you one wish," the genie said. "That's easy," the woman replied. "I want peace in the Mideast. Look at the countries I've got marked on this map, and make them stop fighting each other."

Today's joke:

Barack Obama walks into a bar with a duck on his head.

Bartender looks up and says, "Say, where'd you get the Chicago-influenced secret Muslim with the angry, unpatriotic wife?"

"You ignorant, ill-informed, right-wing alcohol pusher," Obama replies. "This is Not a Chicago-influenced secret Muslim with an angry, unpatriotic wife. This is a duck."

"I was TALKING to the duck."

Between them, Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain are likely to contribute more to candidate flip-floppery than all of the past presidential candidates combined (although I like the term used in this article better -- "U-turns):

Mr McCain's U-turns have mostly increased his appeal to the Republican Party's base, placing him on a rightward trajectory.

It'll probably be a rare day in the next few months when I feel compelled to say something nice about both of the presidential candidates at the same time. But today is one of them. First up, Barack Obama, who went Cosby on us and said some things that needed to be said:

Barack Obama celebrated Father's Day by calling on black fathers, who he said are "missing from too many lives and too many homes," to become active in raising their children.

If one result of the Democratic primary is that the country is going to speed right by the perceived need to atone for its sexist past and deal with the more urgent problem of atoning for racism, a side effect will be that those concerned with sexism will feel slighted, maybe even a little bitter. This has been made pretty clear from comments by Hillary Clinton and some of her supporters, and now Susan Estrich ups the ante, playing the sweetie card:

George Bush: "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah appeasment."

Democrats: "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, false political attack."

Is it hopeless to expect that something useful might come of all this, or at least something more responsive than:

Any bets? My guess is no, but it's a close call:

Woodrow Wilson did it. So did Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson.

All three Democrats bucked the trend and won the hearts and minds of the majority of Hoosiers voting in presidential elections.