About six years ago, Stephen King published a very smart novel called From a Buick Eight. A guy shows up in a car, and nobody knows where he's from. He leaves the car behind, and the car turns out to be this alien machine that eats everybody.

I like the book because it shows King's perfect instinct for what scares people. Place is character, and if you're from noplace, well, you could be a monster from out there who sucks people into man-eating cars.

For us at the Washington Post there can be no greater thrill than the upcoming spectacle of Senator Barack Obama's upcoming visit to Iraq, Afghanistan, and various other places he has never been and does not know the language. The spotlight is upon him now and the chips are down and every tiny little thing he says must be nuanced exactly right,  or it will prove to all the world that he is no better than a newbie in a Usenet group getting flamed until he says stuff about Hitler. We do not expect the Senator to do this, of course, but still. Here are only a few of the things that could go wrong.

$52 million my sound like a lot of money to the uneducated layman.  To experienced analysts here at the Washington Post, such as myself, however, the number is just one of many numbers, such as a billion or a trillion. Seen in that context, the June fundraising figures trumpeted by the Obama campaign aren't so impressive.  In fact, they are pretty ordinary. Bear with me while I do the math.

The New Yorker has stepped in it this time. They think this cover is "satire."  They say so.

The thing about satire is,  it has to hit and hurt the intended target.  It has to make the target scream in pain  with the cruel unfairness of it (because it's true).  The New Yorker cover doesn't  do that. It doesn't even tell you who the target is. The magazine says the target is bad people who spread bad lies about Obama,  but  if you have to go explaining a joke,  you probably shouldn't have told it.

That's what any saggy old guy wants to do to a better-looking younger guy who proposes to put the older guy out of business. It's just a natural sentiment-- that's just what the older guy feels like the younger guy is doing to him.  It's kind of a guy thing.

He's normal.

He's white, older, a former military man, a decorated war hero, family, children, grandchildren, wife.

He's from Arizona.

He calls you his friend.

He's "John McCain," (or so it says on his "birth certificate").

He wants to be President of the United States.

My fantasy (I had it for years):

CALLER: You did this, Rush. You got her elected.

RUSH LIMBAUGH: Hold on, hold on--

CALLER:  You got the feminazis so angry, so mobilized, they outvoted the good decent women of America. You taunted the libs until they came out in droves. You made a bad call on the war and alienated the swing voters.  And now that...that WOMAN is P...Pres...I can't even SAY it...and the murdering abortionists have won and the homosexuals have won and the latte-drinking socialist communist bookworms have won and there will be lesbians everywhere--

RUSH: And this is MY fault?

CALLER. You bet it is. You and that idiot Sean Hannity. That woman is in the White House and I can't even afford to drive the Hummer you said I should get. [Starts to cry]

LIMBAUGH: Well, it is a dark day for America. But don't confuse that with the end of the world....

CALLER: It IS the end of the world. And you did it. Thanks. [Dial tone]

WASHINGTON (May 22)-- The  670,422 pages of medical records provided by Republican presidential candidate John McCain have provided "a wealth of data concerning life in ancient civilizations," according to archaeologists familiar with the project.

"The records are a find," one scientist said. "The apparent practice of the era was to bury the medical records for the journey to the afterlife, along with some single-malt Scotch and a Lexus."

Physicians at the site added that McCain was in excellent shape, considering his age.

WASHINGTON (MAy 18) -- Following calls for "a repackaging of its damaged brand name," the Republican National Committee recommended on Friday that the party be renamed "Purple Haze," a suggestion that was immediately vetoed by several elderly white men in suits.

"We realize the importance in today's world of being 'with it,' and 'hep,' said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, "but we do not have to become 'hippies' just to get votes."

Republican Presidential candidate John McCain agreed.

"We can't just tie-dye our shirts and pretend to be Timothy Leary," he said. "Today's young people see right through things like that."

Mr. McCain is said to be considering a cameo appearance on Mod Squad.

MANCHESTER, Dec. 12, 2035--Perennial Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton warmed up for what a local citizen said "must be her five hundred thousandth" New Hampshire Presidential Primary campaign here by calling perennial rival Barack Obama "leftovers."

Senator Obama responded mildly, remarking that "we have to remember we're all Democrats."

"I don't hold anything Hillary said against her," said Obama, who is now 75, "except the remark in the 2024 campaign about watermelons."

Republicans, who have sent a member of the Bush family to the White House for the last seven election campaigns, said they were confident they could make it an eighth.

"With enemies like that," said President Jenna Bush, "who needs friends?"

Some rowdy thugs came around to my house the other day and started leering and making inappropriate remarks. The cops showed up and arrested the creeps and took them away. Then I got the bill, and I fainted. When I regained consciousness, I called Gold Shield Insurance.  They carry my police coverage.

Back in the late 1980's, Howard Stern used to call up a local Klansman and put him on the air. The Klansman said, "We don't hate. That's a lie. There ain't no point in hating a nigger or a Jeeeeeewwwww, any more than you hate a rat or a dog or a fly. It ain't their fault. They're just born that way, and they got to be controlled, that's all."

That's the pure stuff, the test batch. It's fair and correct to call it racism. Racism refers to the belief that one race is genetically superior to another. Using our Klansman as a litmus, I think the test is in the imagery--the image of beasts, or of something at least not human. Without that idea lurking somewhere around, I don't see how a statement can be called racist.

H.L. Mencken once translated the Declaration of Independence into colloquial American.  It's still fun to read. I now translate George W. Bush's 2004 Memorandum on the Humane Treatment of Al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees into colloquial American. If readers are so cruel as to point out that I am no Mencken, I can only answer that George W. Bush is no Jefferson.

CHICAGO (April 7)--Mark Penn's public relations firm Burson-Marsteller said today they were "glad to have Mark's undivided attention once more, even if we can't send him anywhere outside of Illinois."

Even this limited option for Mr. Penn seemed to shrink in viability on Friday, after Penn told reporters that he didn't expect to be traveling "downstate, or for that matter anywhere south, east, north, or west of State Street, or to any other insignificant place."

"You have to concentrate on the significant parts of Chicago, meaning you have to party on the Gold Coast and work here," Penn said. "And by 'significant,' I don't even mean this whole building. I have no intention of visiting the lower floors, for instance, or even the floors with the better views, if they don't have sun exposure."

Disclaimer: Nothing below represents the views of the author. It is merely a transmission he has received by means of RBS-EEG-transcription software, a remote brain-scanning/mind-reading package developed by the CIA in response to Bush Administration requests.

Just a little background on myself, here, before I stomp the Gray Lady.  My parents are union and so were theirs. I am left-wing born and true blue.  I was raised on the Weavers and Woody Guthrie. My religious education was Bertrand Russell. I got teargassed at the Pentagon, drank champagne the night Nixon resigned.  I am a registered Democrat. I profoundly despise Reaganism, and I voted for Jimmy Carter twice and Walter Mondale once.

And I think the McCain article in the New York Times is a shameful crock of shit.

MADISON, WI (Feb. 17) -- Hillary Rodham Clinton said today that the election for U.S. President was "about the issues, not who is the most popular," and urged voters "not to cast votes just because you think a particular candidate is dreamy."

"It's immature to vote on just feelings," said Mrs. Clinton. "Especially when I have better grades."

Mr. Obama, who arrived on the Madison campus in a bright yellow Ford Mustang, said that Mrs. Clinton was "just jealous."

"It's true she got a four point last term," he said, after the crowd had settled down. "I respect that. But she just sat in the back of the class and took notes."

Analysts have generally been skeptical of Mrs. Clinton's claim that "it's the issues that count," noting that a previous Clinton presidency had been saved largely because Bill was a cool dude, Ken Starr was a geek, and Linda Tripp was two-faced and everybody hated her.

It is feeling that sets a man thinking, and not the other way round.

George Bernard Shaw

Just a word to Hillary, from a former supporter.  Lay off the "speeches don't put food on the table" stuff, okay?  First, you're wrong. Second, you're wrong in a way that messes with people deep down inside where they live and breathe. Third, there's a way you can handle the fact that Barack Obama is one of the most gifted orators of the past fifty years, and you're not. So do me the favor you're not doing yourself, and listen.