Short Cuts

Those Were The Times, My Friend: It was amusing this holiday weekend to watch reporters smashed into crowds of Auh-nold fans trying to ask him about sex, drugs and his anatomy. The candidate dismissed them all with an airy, "Those were the crazy times." Why didn't Clinton think of that? Because Auh-nold was referring to the seventies. Clinton would have to have been talking about last night.

Start Me With Ten, Who Aren't Stout Hearted Men: E.J. Dionne in the WaPo this morning tells us that there is a "longing" for Gen. Wesley Clarke to jump in and be the tenth, count them, tenth dem candidate. For the majority polled recently who couldn't name even one dem candidate this "longing" would seem a bit unconvincing. Some who are geographically incorrect have suggested this all-Arkansas ticket - Hillary and Clarke - calling it the Hick Ticket.

Fun But Who Cares: A new book to be published in France today speculates on the private love lives of a number of French politicians and raises the possibility that Jacques Chirac has a twenty-something son by a Japanese woman which would account for his almost monthly visits to Japan in the seventies. There is no real proof offered so this will have to do." M. Chirac's frequent visits to Japan could be explained by his well-known love for all aspects of Japanese culture, from art to beer to sumo wrestling. Mme Chirac's dog is called Sumo." Works for us.

Goodbye Summer, Hello Drool: Here we were relaxing thinking that if blogaholic Andrew Sullivan could spend August lying on a jetty staring at the moon we could slack off a bit but oh, no - he's been writing. Here, for the London Times, he summarizes what we are looking at in the coming months. He notes that Dr. Dean's summer-long Wet Hen Tour has produced the squinty eyed emergence of Hillary from her book lined cave with spoiling on her mind and the smearing of W's flight-suit image by dem operatives on a particularly nasty roll. All this can change in a twinkling and as Sullivan points out - it's enough to make a pundit drool.

-Your Untanned But Rested and Oh, So Ready LComStaff