"Obama has in him—I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy 'We are the people we have been waiting for' silly rhetoric—the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for.

"So, I wish him all the best. We are all in this together. Necessity is the mother of bipartisanship. And so, for the first time in my life, I’ll be pulling the Democratic lever in November. As the saying goes, God save the United States of America."

"Power will corrupt him, I'm sure. Which is why I intend to go into fair but dogged conservative opposition if he wins this election. He needs a fierce press if he is to be kept on his toes. The Dish will not relent if he wins. All I can tell you is that I will first give him the benefit of the doubt as I gave Bush. Presidents in wartime deserve a chance to do their best. But if the record shows failure or deceit, I will be as tough on Obama as I have been on Bush-Cheney. I just hope I don't have to be." And this is how it should be.

"It is unquestionably a demonstration of the character of the man. But I don't think that it is a special qualification for being president of the United States. In some respects, I'm not sure that's the kind of character I want sitting in the Oval Office. I'm not sure that much time in a prisoner-of-war status doesn't do something to you. Doesn't do something to you psychologically, doesn't do something to you that might make you a little more volatile, a little less apt to listen to reason, a little more inclined to be volcanic in your temperament." John McCain scares the hell out of me the more I watch him and read of him.

"Historically, a six-point lead with four weeks to go is almost impregnable barring unforeseen circumstances. Given that, it’s possible that John McCain is just waiting for the perfect time to drop a bomb on the election process. (Maybe Tucker Bounds is hiding the “kill whitey” tape in a secure vault somewhere.) But realistically, if McCain had any bullets left in his gun, he would have shot them by now. He’s already emptied his nominate-a-woman-for-VP clip and his suspend-the-campaign-for-the-sake-of-the-economy clip, not to mention an entire stockade’s worth of POW ammo. (And now he’s passed on his emergency stash of Reverend Wright and William Ayres cartridges to Lieutenant Palin.) In all of these instances, McCain’s approach to his presidential rival has been of the 'ready, fire, aim' variety. Holding on to some incriminating evidence until the final weeks of the campaign requires a level of discipline that McCain doesn’t seem to have."

"Houses are not investment vehicles, treating them as such is pretty foolish and potentially destructive. And the economy as a whole is far less flexible when too many workers are tied down in one spot with a home. And when fringe exurbs are developed to allow for more lower-income families to own, it leads to enormous inefficiencies and a massive amount of energy wasted on extreme commuting. Etc." I have not thought about it like this. Hmmmmmmmmmm.