Picking Palin: Loop Fans' Fearless Prognostications

Kyle Bell, a student at Indiana University at South Bend.

Len Hoffman, an accountant in Cedarhurst, N.Y.

Howard Cohen, an unemployed political analyst in Los Angeles and three-time Loop contest winner.

Edward Homan, a Harvard graduate student in chemistry.

Congratulations to all, and thanks for entering. The official In the Loop T-shirts are headed your way.

Is He Clairvoyant, or What?

Speaking of the political pundits, it turns out that Douglas Burns, columnist for the Daily Times Herald of Carroll, Iowa, and IowaIndependent.com, predicted on July 29 that McCain would pick Palin and mentioned Biden as a likely Obama running mate.

Under a headline "Why McCain will pick Sarah Palin as running mate," Burns wrote that Palin, of all the possible picks, "brings the most to McCain" and "is a likely selection." Palin has "five children, a captivating TV-mom look and a brief but weighty background as a reformer governor," he wrote.

Republicans might worry she "would get knocked around in a vice-presidential debate" with Biden, Burns wrote, but the Dems would "have to be careful about bullying her, and she would be a vessel for disaffected Hillaryites, bulging with estrogen, looking for a reason to bolt the party."

Mr. Jefferson Takes the Pledge

The blogosphere has been all over the responses Palin gave on the 2006 gubernatorial candidate questionnaire of the conservative Eagle Forum Alaska. The group published the candidate's responses on July 31 of that year.

Question No. 11 was: "Are you offended by the phrase 'Under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?

"Not on your life," Palin responded. "If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its (sic) good enough for me and I'll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance."

(The pledge was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister and a Christian Socialist. The words "under God" were added in legislation signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on June 14, 1954.)