I've been saying for a while now that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki holds the upper hand in the game of "chicken" he's playing with George Bush over negotiating a Status Of Forces Agreement (SOFA) for American troops to legally stay in Iraq past the first of next year. Now it appears both sides are pretty close to admitting that there will be no agreement, and that they had better start talking about some sort of short-term arrangement, which would allow whoever America's next president is to take over the negotiating table.

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Two stories from the "power corrupts" department appeared this week, one on the state level and one on the federal level. Both just go to show, once again, that whenever sweeping surveillance powers are granted to those in authority the end result is almost always the same — widespread abuse of such power to go after anyone the government takes a dislike to, rather than the "terrorists" who are the supposed targets of the law.

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Both candidates had the same pre-debate tactics, and both attempted exactly the same thing. They both tried to "psyche out" their opponent by warning how hard they were going to fight. It didn't work for either of them. Neither one of them really took the bait, and the entire debate was a snoozefest compared to what it was billed as.

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Now, I refuse to get too wrapped up in the question of who "won" the debate. In general, unless one candidate obviously self-destructs, this question is answered among most Americans quite subjectively and quite personally. I thought, much as I did with the first presidential debate, that last night was largely a draw. Neither candidate completely fell on their face, both candidates spoke fairly well, and neither one completely outshone the other.

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The honeymoon Sarah Palin has been enjoying with American voters — ever since John McCain's surprise announcement that he was putting her on the Republican ticket — is now officially over. And I'm writing this before tonight's vice presidential debate, I should note.

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With all the ruckus over whether you can see Russia from Alaska (or from Sarah Palin's porch), there's a story from the Cold War that is largely being overlooked. Because back in 1986, one man walked from Alaska to the Soviet Union (as it was then known).

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While this will be a shock to anyone who has read just about any other column I've written, I speak today in defense of Sarah Palin.

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