Dennis the Menace?

"Maybe the master plan is to make Hillary look like a moderate political genius. If so, Kucinich knocked one out of the park."

As for the state of the Senate, the news is slightly better for Tim Johnson:

"Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson was 'responsive to both word and touch' Thursday evening following emergency brain surgery but the uncertainty of his long-term prognosis casts doubt on the nation's political landscape," says USA Today.

"Republicans at the Capitol showed no signs that they will press for Johnson to resign. Johnson, first elected in 1996, is up for re-election in 2008.

'My expectation and hope is that Tim will recover fully and come back,' Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., who will serve as his party's deputy leader next year, said on Fox News. 'I'd like to be in the majority, but I don't want it to be that way.'"

The Nation's John Nichols says that Tim Johnson's illness "reminds Americans of one of the most troublingly undemocratic aspects of this country's uneven and often dysfunctional political process.

"If Johnson is incapacitated, the decision about how to fill his seat will not be made by the voters of South Dakota but by one man: the state's Republican governor. And if, as is expected, that governor were to appoint a fellow Republican, control of the upper chamber of the Congress would turn on his whim . . .

"The United States should have a uniform system for replacing senators. The system should be democratic, placing authority in the hands of the electorate rather than a single man or woman. Instead, we have a lingering remnant of royalism -- gubernatorial appointment -- that could in this rare circumstance upset the will not just of the people of one state but of the United States."

I suggested a couple of days ago that the Democrats might start using the power of the purse to throw their weight around, and it looks like that's the plan:

"Representative Nancy Pelosi, soon to be speaker of the House, said today that she will create a new panel to oversee spending on intelligence and enable lawmakers to better determine whether the money is being spent wisely," the New York Times reports.

"Ms. Pelosi said the formation of the panel, which would work within the House Appropriations Committee, is in response to recommendations of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks and is part of an effort to make spending on intelligence more transparent."

Why aren't there major anti-Iraq war demonstrations in the streets? Slate Editor Jake Weisberg says part of the reason is the draft and the fact that the U.S. death toll is a fraction of what it was in Vietnam. Beyond that: