Another View of Barack

"Here's a tantalyzing possibility: If Stevens were somehow to squeak through this election, and then be forced to resign after exhausting his appeals, might Sarah Palin decide to appoint . . . Sarah Palin?"

Joe the Foreign Policy Plumber agrees with a voter at a campaign event that "a vote for Obama is a vote for the death of Israel." Prompting Fox anchor Shepard Smith to say: "I just want to make this 100 percent perfectly clear -- Barack Obama has said repeatedly and demonstrated repeatedly that Israel will always be a friend of the United States, no matter what happens once he becomes president of the United States." Which is why we don't have plumbers at the State Department.

I wrote during the conventions about journalists hanging out at Twitter, but Ad Age's Simon Dumenco is decidedly lukewarm:

"The truth is I think Twitter is pretty cool. It can be a great way for certain people and companies with something (hopefully) interesting to say to stay 'top of mind' with their audiences. I've Twittered myself (among friends), and there are definitely Twitter feeds from a handful of individual media operations and media people I know that I can actually count on to be genuinely meaningful and insightful.

"On the other hand, I'm seeing a lot of really smart writers and thinkers devoting way too much time to Twittering -- and to me it's akin to convincing yourself that constant gum chewing is as good as preparing, or consuming, a gourmet meal. Either way, though, I continue to maintain that Twitter is, for the most part, an unnecessary distraction in an already information-overloaded age."

Hmm . . . Does that mean I should cool it with my updates?

One such Twitterer, Ana Marie Cox, has lost her job with the folding of Radar magazine. She asked her fans to help finance her last week on the campaign trail--and quickly raised $7,000. The Internets can be mighty handy.