Two things came to mind immediately.

First, this guy is good. He comes across wonderfully with grace and good looks and he's clearly got political smarts.

Second, he's going to be just another liberal Democrat. What convinced me of that was the content.  He chose to make this a referendum on gas prices.  He made big oil companies and Republicans the problem.  And then he finished with the most telling line of all.  About giving "young" people their turn to lead.

That may be smart politics and he certainly may have enough funding, charisma and party momentum to pull of a surprising win.  But it's the same tired old "pit this group against that one" politics of the left.  In one commercial he got rich vs.poor and young vs. old.  How far are we away from "President Bush abandoned the black community of Katrina" to pit black vs. white.

The irony is that they'll say - with a straight face - that they are the ones who can unify us (a la Hillary - the most polarizing figure since Newt Gingrich). 

They're not.  They can't.  And they won't even try - not as long as dividing works so much better.

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...what would it be like?

• Girls would be removed from schools and jobs immediately
• Women would be beaten publicly for not wearing Islamic dress
• Alcohol would be forbidden
• Freedom of religion would mean you can go to the mosque as often as you like as long as you do it every day
• You would be raised to hate Jews
• You would be raised to hate Christians
• Young boys would be taught that it was their responsibility to kill their sisters if they dated someone outside Islam
• Wives would just have to realize that if their husbands beat them then it must be their own fault
• You might be able to elect leaders, but they could only serve as long as the leading clerics decided they were leading right (imagine Pat Robertson having that power here)
• Freedom of speech would mean freedom to support your government in any media format
• Civil rights would mean....nothing
• You would be encouraged to dance in the streets when foreign women and children were killed by one of your own

Maybe it's my perspective being a U.S. Southerner, but it's hard for me to understand why anyone ever converts to Islam from anything...or even nothing.

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Easily deduced. The terrorist hates democracy. Why? Because democracy requires convincing with logical arguments. Terrorists are base idiots. Filled with the rage of fools and the hatred of hell, they couldn't convince an eskimo to take a coat.

But they can kill the eskimo.

And so they do. They kill his children and his parents. They kill them while they eat in a cafe or drive to work. They kill them while they worship and while they shop.

So this brings us to their latest iditotic move. They attacked Israel. And let's not forget that they killed 8 Israeli's in their invasion where they took two hostages.

I think their (idiotic) goal was to inflame the Arabic world (and anti-semitic Europe) against Israel. But actually they've (Iran has) given moral cover to the slaughter of their terrorist brothers because they did something so heinous even the pathetic European pants-wetters think maybe they deserve what they're getting.

Nice job. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait and others have supported Israel in this fight.

Finally, Iran and Syria (Iran West) have given Israel cover to wipe out not only the terrorist organization on their border, but to go deeper into Syria's network and expose Iran's network. And inflict heavy losses.

Thankfully, terrorists are idiots.

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President Bush has not handled certain things well in his 2nd term. Katrina, the port deal, notification of Congress about security issues, etc. These are hugely important issues affecting all Americans and his popularity has rightly fallen as a result.

But he has the courage to do the right thing where past Presidents have melted into goo.

Syria and Iran ARE parts of the axis of evil (welcome, Syria, to that group) and the rest of the world is scared to death to say it.

Hezbollah deserves to be neutralized for attacking Israel through cross-border raids (kidnapping two and killing eight) and launching Iranian missiles into Israeli towns.

Prior administrations would have tried to curry favor with the world by simply calling on Israel to stop.

Bush won't.

And it will be a difficult and ugly path in the Middle East in the coming weeks as Israel does the awful, dirty job that America and its allies are naturally terrified to do. But not as difficult and ugly as ignoring the terrorist nations that threaten all free nations in the world. Bush has the stomach for it. At least to give Israel support while they do it. And I believe that we're all the better for that.

sharptalk

Even as the whole "Plame-gate" affair evaporated like a summer puddle, the main (though bit-playing) character Valerie Plame did something very interesting on Friday.

She sued the Vice-President, Scooter Libby (btw, best name in politics), Karl Rove and others for causing her career undue harm and for bringing unwanted publicity to her.

Well, she's still working in the same job.  I am too, for that matter, maybe I should sue someone.

As for the unwanted publicity, was that unrelated to the fact that her husband wrote an op-ed in the world's largest newspaper?  Was the (madly vain) cover shot for Vanity Fair (below) likely to never be seen by the unwashed?  Maybe the book deal she signed would be considered a lesser-career.  I wish the VP would tell Novak that I'm important (if only I were).

                                                       

Sometimes you just have to laugh.  But my guess is that the lawsuit will be "frog-marched" out of court and die a quiet death on page 36.  And some other (faux) scandal of the month will have us seething on page 1.

sharptalk

Note: First image is cover of Vanity Fair magazine.  Second is from MSNBC article announcing the book deal.