I humbly refer your attention to this really splendid nini-essay by my friend Kevin Patterson, which is only depressing because of its subject matter, and because he covers the relevant points so incisively. At present, it's the second entry from the top of the page.
http://kevinsmarginalia.blogspot.com/
Kevin and I are online friends, who mainly discuss genre TV shows (you do not want to know how many hours we've spent discussing the second season of "Millennium"), but we've had some friendly political tussles during the primary season, when I was supporting Dean, and he was actively working on John Kerry's campaign.
It will tell you something about the sterling quality of his character that he never once gloated about this afterwards.:-/
This is a fairly new entry, and I just read it. Kevin is a grad student in Rhode Island, btw. I happen to think it's vastly more perceptive than most of the musings on what's happening in Iraq now that almost any of our mainstream media pundits have come up with.
Do they put something in your food to make you stupid when you get old and successful? :-)