The good news is that it looks like Hillary’s campaign, if not dead, is showing signs of crumbling. The bad news is that we might get stuck with Obama. If Hillary is republican-lite, Obama is Hillary-lite. Maybe they’ll take each other out, leaving an opening for somebody else. Or maybe it’ll be President Huckabee. Might be time to get born again.

I don’t know what’s worse – that I have to go to work today, or that Christmas is only two weeks from tomorrow.

A special Press the Meat today, as Timmy Potatohead hosts that lying, adulterous, cross-dressing scumbag, Guidi Ruliani for the entire hour. Think Timmuh will hit him with some tough questions? Me neither.

On Faze the Nation, Bush Buddy Bobby Schieffer hosts Jay Rockefeller and Chuck Hagel, on to talk about the CIA destroying the torture tapes, and the latest NIE on Iran.

At Fux News, Weaselface Wallace hosts a fair an balanced pair of candidates, Mike “I never met a serial rapist I didn’t like” Huckabee, and St. John McCain, in addition to the usual panel of assholes, and this week’s “Power Player,” Samuel Lloyd III, dean of Washington National Cathedral.

Over at the Goebbels network, George Snufalufagus hosts Joe Biden and (for some unknown reason), fucking Newt Gingrich (why does this disgraced asshole get any airtime whatsoever?). Then the Axis of Drivel is reunited with a “classic” roundtable of Sam :omg: Donaldson, Cokie “the hag” Roberts and George :jerk: Will. And This Weak’s “Voice” is John Cusack, on to talk about his new film where he plays a father caring for his two children while his wife is serving in Iraq. Better her than me.

Wolf Blitzer’s Late Emission has Pakistan’s “civilian” dictator, Pervez Musharraf, plus whatever congresscritters they can scrounge up.

Later, on 60 Minutes, Anderson Cooper tells us about the mere 700 mountain gorillas left in Africa, Scott Pelley tells us about Prometa, which is the drug that people are getting addicted to so that they can not be addicted to something else, and Bob Simon tells us how wonderful San Diego Chargers RB LaDainian Tomlinson is (seriously, he’s apparently a pretty good person).

And of course, all new Dexter and The Brotherhood. Please, don’t make me go back to work tomorrow!

Good Morning, fellow Devil Worshipers. So, another weekend is upon us. That generally means doing a bunch of shit you don’t really want to do, or feeling guilty about not doing a bunch of shit you don’t want to do, but should. Having been born Catholic, I tend to feel guilty about everything I’ve done, not done, or even thought about about doing. Not guilty enough to actually change anything, of course. Fortunately, I can live with that.

This has been another long week. Not as bad as last week, but there was a lot of shoveling involved (and kinda on the cold side, too). As of yesterday, our 26.8″ of snow has us solidly in the early lead for the Golden Snowball award, five inches ahead of Rochester, and actually about a foot over our normal average to date. Last year, we only had a couple of inches at this time, and we still wound up with over 140″, so this could shape up to be a pretty snowy winter. Or not. Either way, I’m sure glad as hell it’s finally Friday.

I watched Warm Springs on HBO the other night. It’s a docudrama about FDR that I’d seen before, but it’s a pretty good movie, so I watched it again. At the end of the movie, they roll some text mentioning that FDR saw up through both the Great Depression and the Second World War, while they play his famous first inaugural speech, which includes the words:

So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.

Such a stark contrast to what we have today. A nation with a ruler, but no leader, whose every action is an attempt, not to assuage fear, but to foment (and profit from) it. I just hope we can make it through the rest of this idiot’s term.

I used to work with lawyers. Lawyers that were also faculty members. Now I work with doctors. Doctors that also happen to be faculty. Those that combine the best of their respective professions are great. Unfortunately, those that combine the worst, well, they tend to be petulant, arrogant, spoiled children.

Speaking of which, how about our preznit? Just in case you thought his ignoring of the August 6, 2001 PDB (you know, the one that said Osama was determined to strike the US) was a fluke, now we have his admission yesterday that, when he was told that there was new information on Iran, he was told what it was, and he didn’t bother to fucking ask. Joe Biden said it best:

“Are you telling me a president who is briefed every single morning, who is fixated on Iran, is not told back in August that the tentative conclusion of 16 intelligence agencies in the United States government said they had abandoned their effort for a nuclear weapon in ’03?” Biden said in a conference call with reporters.

“That’s not believable,” Biden added. “I refuse to believe that. If that’s true, he has the most incompetent staff in … modern American history and he’s one of the most incompetent presidents in modern American history.”

Except I don’t think he needed to qualify it with either “one of” or “modern.”

After a slow start, the snow really started coming down last night. I guess I’d better go see if I have to shovel the driveway to get to work. Too bad they don’t give snow days to grownups.

So, I’ve been thinking more about the “Brown and Black” forum from the other night. As with the other debates (or forums or whatever you want to call them), they all but ignored Dennis Kucinich, and, to a lesser extent, Bill Richardson (Mike Gravel wasn’t there). They mostly focused on the “top” two or three, as usual. Now, you can tell me that DK and the others aren’t very likely to win, and I suppose that’s true enough. But it’s very important to hear what these other folks have to say, if for no other reason than to keep the others honest (for lack of a better term, since there’s not a whole lot of honesty to go around with the top two, IMHO). Besides, why should polls that are taken way before anybody casts a vote determine who we hear from? Shouldn’t we hear from everybody first, and then see what the polls say? The media shouldn’t be the ones to determine who the “top” candidates should be.

Then again, eight people on one stage for an hour becomes pretty ridiculous. Very little of substance is ever said, as the “frontrunner” tries to say nothing in as many words as possible, and everybody else competes to have the best soundbite. So, here’s what I think they ought to do. Have real, two-person debates, in kind of a tournament setting. Kind of like the World Cup, or the NCAAs. If you want to use the polls to rank the candidates, fine. Then #1 debates #8, #2 goes against #7, etc. Frankly, I’d love to see the “frontrunner” hold her own with Dennis Kucinich on Iraq, single-payer healthcare, you name it.

And while we’re at it, we might as well just go ahead and have a national primary. Everybody votes on one day, and the winner is the winner (let’s have instant runoff voting while we’re at it). But not in friggin’ February. Nine months is too damn long a time to have to put up with these people.

It needn’t be “single elimination,” of course. In fact, since they insist on starting this process so goddamn early, there’s plenty of time to have a round robin, where everybody gets to debate everybody at least once or twice. And never mind having these traditional media moderators, who yack it up and get more air time than the candidates. They’re not running for anything, so they ought to shut the fuck up. Pick a single debate topic (Iraq, Global Warming, jobs, healthcare, whatever; something that’s actually important, as opposed to “diamonds or pearls,” fer chrissakes), and let ’em go at it for an hour.

After a few months of those, I bet you’d see quite a shakeup in the “top tier,” and maybe – just maybe – we’d get some decent candidates for a change.

So, what’s up today? First, on Press the Meat, Timmy Potatohead hosts Jim Webb, fresh off a trip to Iraq, to tell us how things are going over there. Then it’s David Brody of Christ’s network, NBC’s David Gregory, NPR’s Michele Norris and WaPost columnist Eugene Robinson.

Over at CBS, Bush Buddy Bobby Schieffer hosts St. John McCain, plus a couple of campaign shills: David Axelrod of the Obama campaign, and Howard Wolfson of the Clinton campaign.

Over at Fux News Sunday, Weaselface Wallace has the Pillsbury Dough Boy, Karl Rove, and the Chairman of the DCCC, Chris Van Hollen. This week’s media whores include Freddy Barnes of the Weekly Standard, Mara Liasson of NPR, Bill Kristol (also of the Weekly Standard, to fairly balance Fred Barnes, I guess), and Nina Easton of Fortune Magazine. Then it’s Fux’s “Power Player of the Week,” Earl “Rusty” Powell, Director of the National Gallery of Art.

Back over on the Goebbels Network, George Snufalufagus hearts Huckleberry Mike Huckabee, and then it’s a roundtable with the thoroughly disgusting Peggy Noonan, the fairly disgusting Elisabeth Bumiller, the inanely disgusting George :jerk: Will, and the not at all disgusting Katrina “I don’t care how hot these lights are, I’m wearing my leather jacket” vanden Heuvel. This Weak’s voice is none other than Steven “Little Stevie, Silvio Dante” Van Zandt.

Wolf Blitzer’s Late Emission includes Commander Codpiece, George Bush, plus Chris Dodd, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, head of the “Multi-National” Corps in Iraq, Carl Levin, and Arlen “would somebody please pay attention to me” Specter.

Later, on 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley tells us that times are tough for Iraq’s Christian population (what’s left of them, anyway), Lesley Stahl tells us about Nicholas Negroponte’s goal of a laptop for every kid in the world, and Steve Kroft helps Will Smith hawk his latest flick.

Better yet, there’s a new episode of Dexter on at 9:00. Nothing like a serial killer in high def. Enjoy your Sunday, and (if you’re like me) try not to think about having to go back to fucking work tomorrow.