DISQUS

If Stevens loses the election, the Dems win another seat in the Senate. If Stevens wins and gets expelled from the Senate, the Dems will not be able to beat Palin, if she runs. And Palin will run -- unless she's dragged down by scandals of her own making. She wants the visibility that Washington offers, She wants to hold on to and expand her National recognition. She wants -- oh, she wants badly -- to run for the White House in 2012.

But it all depends on Stevens winning and getting expelled from the Senate.

Klaus Emmerich is an ignorant man whose comment is grotesquely parochial. Wolf Blitzer you say? Bill O'Reilly, more likely. As it becomes evident that Obama is not only "politically civilized" but cultured and smart, Herr Emmerich will, like O'Reilly, insist that he never said Obama couldn't succeed brilliantly and that his words were taken out of context. (Or maybe he's more like Hannity and Limbaugh, in which case he'll explain Obama's success as due to the white folks in his cabinet.)

The Sara Palin we saw at the Convention may or may not be the Sara Palin who will emerge during the campaign. She has a very brief time to prove herself, and will have ample opportunities to stumble and fall. She didn't know what Charles Gibson was talking about when he referred to the "Bush Doctrine" and if that's just the first in a series of gaffes, the lady ain't going anywhere. But if she's got the ability to get with the program, to master the facts and names and figures of the international and national political scene, she may yet prove the author right. Right now, and speaking from the Left, I'm not convinced she's got the stuff of greatness. And, though pretty, she couldn't hold a candle to Clare Boothe Luce. ;-)