Yeah, and . . . ?

So The New York Times reports that John McCain may have had an affair. That is not, or should not be (as we learned to our disgust in the Clinton administration), news, in the sense of anything the public either needs to or should know.

What is news, in that same sense, is the extent to which Crusader Rabbit has been figuratively, not literally, in bed with lobbyists while simultaneously bad-mouthing them as the domestic Evil Empire.

Howard Dean (who would have made a great President) has some pithy remarks to offer on the subject; slightly less partisan but equally cutting are Joe Conason's in Salon.

Heaven save us from such "purity" as McCain's.

Meanwhile, in a classic too-little/too-late, others are beginning to wonder aloud whether Barack "let's sing Kumbaya" Obama has what's needed to take on the inevitable filthy right-wing smear campaigns that would assuredly dog a candidacy and, if it comes to that, presidency. Hillary Clinton is hanging on Texas and Ohio, and let's just hope it's not too late, that some artificial sense of "inevitability" has not become attached to the Obama candidacy.

Y'know, it's a stinking shame, really. Here is this fine man, honest, intelligent, clearly well-meaning and determined, and he is just in the right place at the wrong time. If either this were a time for simply licking our wounds and reassembling our national priorities (as it was in Gerald Ford's brief day), or if Mr. Obama were just able to step through a time machine and acquire the savvy and toughness that only experience in fighting hard fights against dirty scum (I mean, name one hard fight this man has had so far in his career--and this primary campaign does not count as "hard"), that would be another matter. But as things are, Mrs. Clinton is what the nation needs right now.

Well, right now it's too early to say what the latest debate may or may not have done for either Democrat, but the early thinking on the McCain thing is that it is definitely not good news. With so many Republicans already feeling (however illogically) that they would need to hold their noses to vote for such a "liberal" Republican (hey, it's their idea, not mine), many may just write it off and stay home (a phrase that is rapidly becoming obsolete with mail-in voting) on Election Day.

Sleep tight.