Week of April 21, 2008

Sam Nunn and David Boren by political temperament should be in [Hillary's] camp. Instead, they threw in with Obama, who calls his campaign"post-partisan," a ludicrous phrase. The blowback at ABC's debate makes clear that Obama is the left's man. So what did Messrs. Nunn and Boren see?

The biggest event was the Clinton Abandonment. In a campaign of surprises, none has been more breathtaking than the falling away of Clinton supporters, loyalists . . . and friends. Why?

Money. Barack Obama's mystical pull on people is nice, but nice in modern politics comes after money. Once Barack proved conclusively that he could raise big-time cash, the Clintons' strongest tie to their machine began to unravel. Today he's got $42 million banked. She's got a few million north of nothing.

Last week was a good week for Herbert Marcuse. Bob Dylan won a Pulitzer Prize and Karl Marx was published on the op-ed page of The New York Times, and in German. In America, revolution is a career move. Marcuse thought this was the bad news, but it is the good news.

$10 Million in 24 Hours? That's how much the Clinton campaign says it expects to pull in between last night's win and the end of the day today. For comparison, Richard Nixon's entire 1960 campaign cost about $10 million, which was more than JFK spent to win the presidency that year. That's not adjusted for inflation, and the 1960 election pre-dated Watergate-era reforms, so it's not a precise comparison. But still, $10 million in 24 hours?

It is the US military occupation of Iraq that is producing"al-Qaeda" wannabes, and if it is ended the Iraqis and their neighbors will polish those off tout de suite. Keep the military occupation going, as McCain desires, and you are running an incubator for terrorism against the US and its allies that has already produced hits on Madrid and the London Underground.

In other words, elect McCain, my friends, and you are summoning the awful genie of another 9/11. I said it. I mean it. I'm not taking it back. That man's announced policies could well produce a blowback that will lead to the end of democracy in the United States. It is a momentous decision.

On Jan. 20, 2009, the Bushes will be leaving 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — a compelling reason for them to have picked the Western White House [for Jenna's May wedding] over the real thing, said Doug Wead, a former Bush family adviser and the author of “All the Presidents’ Children: Triumph and Tragedy in the Lives of America’s First Families” (Atria, 2003).

“We can look at it and say, ‘Gee, they practically own the place, they’ve been there so long,’ ” Mr. Wead said. “But they’ve had that bitter feeling of looking in the gates from the outside, and why should the Obamas be walking around the place where they were married? Why not be able to go back to that ranch and hold hands and walk in the moonlight and have it forever?”