A History of Sex and Journalism

"Frankie La Rosa likes everything about John McCain's politics. He likes his moderation. He likes his integrity. He even read one of his books. But when the primary rolls around here April 22, he plans to vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"Why? Because McCain, 71, would be the oldest president ever elected to a first term, and in La Rosa's book, that's just too old. La Rosa knows this because he's old, too -- 78."

I can attest that McCain put in some pretty long days on the trail for a doddering man who's falling apart.

Ralph Nader is running again! Well, last time he got 0.38 percent of the vote. So I propose that he get 0.38 percent of the media attention.

Barack Obama is getting some Republican votes.

The obits for the Hillary campaign are already rolling in. "If she is not temperamentally suited to reckon with the possibility of losing quite yet, advisers say, she is also a cold, hard realist about politics -- at some point, she is known to say, someone will win and someone will not," says the New York Times.

"Over take-out meals and late-night drinks, some regrets and recriminations have set in, and top aides have begun to face up to the campaign's possible end after the Texas and Ohio primaries on March 4. Engaging in hindsight, several advisers have now concluded that they were not smart to use former President Bill Clinton as much as they did, that 'his presence, aura and legacy caused national fatigue with the Clintons,' in the words of one senior adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity to assess the campaign candidly."

The adviser has a point. Even if you liked Bill Clinton, the whole idea of a co-presidency began to seem a little wearying.

Hillary dismissed that story yesterday, and seems to have a new slogan: Obama, He's No Messiah.

"Now, I could stand up here and say, 'Let's just get everybody together. Let's get unified.' The skies will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect."

Frank Rich likens the Hillary campaign to President Bush's handling of the Iraq war--a bad plan that was undone by an insurgency:

"Clinton fans don't see their standard-bearer's troubles this way. In their view, their highly substantive candidate was unfairly undone by a lightweight showboat who got a free ride from an often misogynist press and from na¿ve young people who lap up messianic language as if it were Jim Jones's Kool-Aid. Or as Mrs. Clinton frames it, Senator Obama is all about empty words while she is all about action and hard work.