Ever onwards, into the fray, we return to the latest in a series of primary "picks" columns, this time heading down to Florida to examine the Republican race. I refuse to write any Democratic picks, since they're supposed to be in the penalty box for moving their primary up sooner than February 5th. So this week, it's GOP-only.

Which is probably a good thing, since my track record on the Republican side is a lot better than my total for Democrats. I seem to be able to be more objective on the Republicans, and more biased on the Democratic side, so make of that what you will.

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Netizens, fellow bloggers, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid, Members of Congress, Supreme Court Justices, and all Americans... I am proud to stand before you and say... the state of the weblog is strong!

Blogging, for instance, means you can put your own comments out there before President Bush gives his final State of the Union speech next Monday. This is a good thing for our blogosphere!

The state of the blog is best when we call things long before the mainstream media wakes up from its eternal slumber to echo what bloggers have been saying for months. Like predicting last May that February 5th will not determine our nominees, and that we may even have open conventions this year.

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There's a difference between leading and following. Leading means getting out in front, and charting a course. Watching to see what others do, calculating where the political chips are going to fall, and then picking the safest course is not leading. It is following.

John Edwards today came out strongly in support of Chris Dodd's fight against Harry Reid in the Senate over giving telecommunications companies immunity for breaking the wiretapping laws. To be fair, Dodd is the one leading on the issue, but he has dropped out of the race for president, so he deserves the leadership honors on the issue. But among the three leading candidates for the Democratic nomination, only Edwards is even speaking about the issue. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as of this writing, don't have any press releases up on their web pages on the issue, one way or the other. Both of them are out on the campaign trail rather than in the Senate to cast votes on the issue.

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Either Karl Rove has joined the Clinton campaign as their advisor, or somebody over there has learned a lot from his standard campaign playbook. Because they're successfully using Rove's signature (and quite bizarrely effective) political tactic: attack your opponent not on his weak points, but on your weak points. This throws your opponent on defense, when he should be strongly playing offense.

The first indication of this came a few weeks ago when Hillary started criticizing Obama's Iraq war voting record. Even though he was against it from the beginning, Clinton points out that in the past few years Obama has voted for war funding! Well, so what? Unless I'm grossly mistaken, Clinton herself has voted for war funding in the same time period. And Clinton voted for the war's onset, which she's never apologized for (a weak point for her). But she tied Obama up in knots for a while explaining why this was such a ridiculous charge.

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Life imitates art....

I was amused to read an article in Salon the other day about a man who is selling one acre lots on the moon for the surprisingly reasonable price of $19.95 each.

But what amused me most about the article is that whoever wrote it obviously doesn't know much about science fiction, as Robert A. Heinlein's name wasn't even mentioned.

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I was watching the Chris Matthews Show yesterday, and amidst the usual blather about Hillary Clinton was an interesting question: what's Bill going to do if she gets elected? Now, this wasn't the first time I'd heard the question asked, but it was the first time I've heard people actually take it seriously. Several facets of the question were explored, including whether Bill will have a West Wing office or not (the First Lady has traditionally had a less-prestigious East Wing office), whether he'd be "in" on briefings and decisions, and (most interestingly) whether Hillary is going to have a problem getting a Vice President (since anyone considering the job would have to ask whether Bill would be more important in the administration than the VP). But none of them even mentioned what may be the perfect solution to the problem. How about Bill Clinton, White House Chief of Staff to President Hillary Clinton?

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I apologize in advance for the disjointed nature of this week's column. There are a lot of odds and ends to cover, including tomorrow's primary picks, a cartoon, and the usual awards and talking points.

But the first of these ends is definitely odd: is it just my imagination, or did Charles Krauthammer (of all people) read my earlier column before writing his own? You be the judge.

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The media is about to wake up to a basic fact about the Democratic campaign -- that the two frontrunners are actually sitting senators. Meaning that (unlike the retired politicians in the race) they can actually still get something done during their campaign. But the issue that will bring this to the fore, while important, may overshadow an even better chance to show some real leadership.

Maybe there is a reason why sitting senators almost never go on to become president. Senator Clinton and Senator Obama certainly haven't made an enormous name for themselves in the Senate so far. Can anyone name a piece of legislation that carried their name on it, or that they championed? John McCain has one (McCain/Feingold) that he's actually been trying to live down ever since in the GOP; but where is the corresponding "Clinton/Specter" law, or the "Obama/Snowe" act? I should also point out, to be fair, that former Senator Edwards is in the same boat, even though he's not in the Senate any more.

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"Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do; presidents before had not even tried. But it took a president to get it done. That dream became a reality, the power of that dream became real in people's lives because we had a president who said 'We're going to do it' and actually got it accomplished."
-- Hillary Clinton

I come neither to praise Hillary nor to bury her. I just want to make that clear from the onset. And while I normally don't like to comment in what I call the "scandal du jour" buzzing around the blogosphere, I feel that many people are missing a key point in this whole debate. And missing that point could be disastrous for the Clinton campaign, and could sweep Obama into the nomination. So I feel it's worth commenting on.

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Photograph copyright © 2008 Rebecca Wilson  |  Reprint Policy

President Bush's first short journey as president was an uncomfortable one for him, and it appears he and those around him have done everything in their power -- and also a few things not within their constitutional power -- to ensure he never has to experience such humiliation again.

Immediately after being sworn in for his first term as president, Bush got into his limousine for the inaugural parade from the Capitol to the White House. This is traditionally a triumphant event, complete with cheering crowds. Some presidents even walk the route, since it is not that great a distance. But in January of 2001, the sidewalks of Pennsylvania Avenue were lined with 20,000 protesters who were angry with the outcome of the election. Even from within his speeding limo, Bush doubtlessly heard people screaming at him and saw the obscene gestures made... and he could not have failed to notice that at least one person hit his vehicle with a well-thrown egg.

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