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Yesterday’s news that Rudoplh Giuliani would not be running for governor takes me back.

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Weird thing happened this morning.  I had signed up to receive e-mail alerts from the Nobel Committee.  I got the big announcement, of course. But it seems I got an early draft.  See below.

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Since the FBI takedown of public officials, the national press and indeed the world press has fallen all over the story. The press reports are typically confused and confusing, with accounts talking about “the case” or even two linked “schemes.” The NY Times report is a case in point. Gail Collins’ column today takes some cheap, mildly amusing shots, much too easy for a writer of her talents..

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I am listening to the U.S. Attorney from New Jersey press conference on the political corruption and “money laundering” arrest of 30-plus individuals including the mayor of Hoboken and the Jersey City City Council president. It smells a bit, and not for the reasons intended.

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arack Obama said on “60 Minutes” that he knows of no serious fan of college football who is against a playoff system. Well, I suppose we’ve never met, but a playoff would ruin college football and would not even add fairness.

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Here is Sarah Palin defending herself in today’s Times:

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Anyone who’s ever watched a football game on television (or any othe sport) should be familiar with announcers who keep pointing out the path by which the losing team can come back.   The Cowboys may be down 15 points with five minutes left but stay tuned because they only need two scores plus a two-point conversion to tie.  Not only is a comeback a good story, it keeps the eyeballs on the ads.

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Unlike the ralliers and screechers on talk radio, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, makes a serious case that Barack Obama’s associations with “unrepentant terrorist” Bill Ayers (as well as convicted felon and the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright) is a serious issue.

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The punditocracy has declared (here, here and here) that Sarah Palin “passed� her big test in her debate with Joe Biden. By that they mean she didn’t sound like a blithering idiot the way she did talking to Katie Couric. True, she was not that bad.

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Former presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani got a big laugh when he mocked community organizers. But it’s not a trivial point. Republicans dislike community organizers because they reject the idea of collective solutions. If you need a park, get a backyard. if you need a job, get it yourself, or, more accurately, from your family and social connections.

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t seems to me that Sarah Palin is more popular with the delegates (and perhaps the hard core base) than is John McCain. The fact is McCain is minority candidate in the party. If there had been a single right wing stalwart (like George Bush) instead of the four headed doofus of Romney, Huckabee, Thompson and Giuliani, he would have lost. So now he is not even particularly popular with his party. So he needs Palin and the Christian right, who he used to attack.

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I know as much about these others as I know about Sarah Palin, which is to say next to nothing.  But if John McCain was looking for a woman governor to run with, there are two others who seem superior to Palin.  Jodi Rell of Connecticut has been governor for four years and was lieutenant governor before that.  She is even married to a former navy pilot.  She’s popular and has been re-elected.  Problem is: she’s considered a liberal Republican.

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It’s wrong to say that McCain picking Palin is like Bush I picking Quayle. Palin is more like someone Quayle would pick.

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It’s fantastic that Obama can get 80,000 folks to a political rally.  It’s obvious that he has a huge lead in enthusiasm.  And maybe McCain can’t get 10,000 or ven 5,000 to his events.  But here’s the thing: an unenthusiastic, even apathetic vote counts just as much as a heartfelt one.  Maybe it shouldn’t. But it does.

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Why did the Democratic Convention change the lyrics of “We Are Family”?

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Since Barack Obama selected Joe Biden (and before that too) the party faithful and the pundits have mused mightily about why he did not select Hillary Clinton instead. After all, she is the only one out there with a large base of voters. To me the answers are obvious: (1) After the strain of the primaries, Obama just did not like Hillary; (2) choosing Clinton would show weakness, not strength in that Obama would seem to need Clinton and would be overshadowed by both Hillary and Bill Clinton; (3) the Republicans would be able to run ad after ad of the VP candidate attacking Obama. They already did this truck with Biden, but with Clinton it would be much, much worse.

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The Olympic medal count is unofficial, not something officially recognized by the International Olympic Committee. Still, the count is universally reported and widely known. (Even the IOC puts the count for each games on its web site, but says: “The International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not recognise global ranking per country; the medal tables are displayed for information only.”) Officially, medals are awarded to individuals, though these individuls do represent national teams.

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What’s really disgusting in the Spitzer mess is the use of the press to force a plea bargain where there are no charges. If the stories are true that the feds are negotiating with Spitzer, and they may not charge him if he resigns, that raises the question of why he has not been indicted yet. The organizers of the prostitution ring have been indicted.

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The criminal complaint charging members of the now-famous Emperor’s Club prostitution ring does not charge Gov. Spitzer with anything. It doesn’t even name him. (See http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20080310spitzer-complaint.pdf) That means that someone leaked confidential grand jury material to the Times. This happens all the time. But the fact remains that the information was supposed to be private. I don’t think Spitzer is even a hypocrite. Did he ever prosecute clients of prostitutes? This is no different from the Lewinsky mess. I hope, like President Clinton, he fights and doesn’t resign.

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For most of this primary season, the standard refrain was that the Democrats suffered (if that’s the word) from an embarrassment of riches. They had a half-dozen terrific candidates, it was said, and I don’t deny it. The last two standing, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, are not just excellent, but historic, groundbreaking. Either would be a vast improvement over the incumbent.

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McCain-Feingold who?

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While most everyone likes Mike, the idea of a billionaire buying his way into office– or even contention– is unsettling in a democracy. Since Mayor Bloomberg has at least held public office, his self-financed candidacy would not be as wacky as Ross Perot’s, to say nothing of the absurdist contentions of Steve “the inheritor” Forbes.

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Though I tend to prefer the Democrats, I used to think that Mitt Romney might make an acceptable choice for president because I was convinced he was a hypocrite.  But now Mr. Romney has taken his hypocrisy one step too far. 

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Lately Giuliani has been announcing his admiration for Nicholas Sarkozy. He has gone so far as to broadcat his “dream” about Sarkozy coming to America and the leading Democrats going to France. I thought it was a pretty good line until I learned the real reason that Giuliani s admires the French president. Sarkozy is getting divorced while in office. Now if Sarkozy comes here, he can advise Rudy– and perhaps teach him how to find an attractive new wife.

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Yesterday’s Iraq hearing told us a lot about what we already know: Iraq is a mess and the “progress” there is uneven at best.  But it told us little or nothing about what we don’t know: How do we know when to get out, and, if not now, when?

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Dead Certain, Robert Draper’s new book on George W. Bush, portrays the president as a decisionmaker.  (See the NY Times review at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/books/05kaku.html?ref=books and the first chapter at http://nytimes.com/2007/09/04/books/05draperfirstchap.html )  Bush would have it that he is steadfast, determined, and an optimist. His detractors call him stubborn.  Actually, he is neither. He is something worse: Bush is oblivious. 

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The other day the Wall Street Journal ran a book review about a new history of the Marshall Plan. Apparently, of the minority of Americans who were even aware of the Marshall plan at the time, a small majority was opposed to it.

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Even if you believe that Scooter Libby was wronged (though he was convicted) or that the investigation of the Valerie Plame leak was wrong (though it was ordered by Ashcroft) Bush’s commutation of his prison term is phony. Bush said he “respects’ the jury’s verdict but that Libby’s sentence was “excessive.” Never mind that the sentence was imposed by a Republican judge and could have been appealed. If that’s the case, why not commute Libby’s sentence after he has served half or a quarter of his time or a single month? Wouldn’t that show more respect for the jury and the law, and still show mercy?

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Barry Bonds is taking a lot of heat, most of it unjustified.

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Mike Bloomberg’s departure from the Republican Party—convenient for a while, but no longer—sets the stage for his presidential bid. Of course, no third party or independent candidate has ever won the presidency. Only Teddy Roosevelt, a former president, has ever come close and that was in 1912.

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