Jody, at this point, I personally don't care. I don't watch these "debates." They aren't really debates anyway, they're bloated press interviews, designed to generate sound bites for both sides. Nobody is allowed to follow lines of thought more than a minute or two. So I'm watching all of these candidates on a lot more fronts than TV news shows.

There are a lot of primaries, and anything could happen.

The main point is that in 2012, the Democrats are going to get completely blown out of the water. What we will need in office is a Republican President with enough of an intellectual grasp - not just an emotional one - of his or her principles to deal with that situation and not fly off half-cocked. There aren't that many out there, and not surprisingly, most stay clear of politics.

The good news is that almost anybody would do better than the academia fool in office now.

Ever seen a kid try to explain that he didn't steal a cookie from the jar? There's one kind of kid who will shift the cookies around in the jar to conceal that one is missing, make sure the jar is exactly as he found it, and carefully sweep the crumbs up on the floor. There's another kind of kid who leaves the cookie jar open, and stands there in front of you with frosting on his face and hands, and swear he didn't touch the cookies. Obama is the second kid.

Sometimes you just stand there, looking at these people, and say "what the hell are they thinking?" The answer is, they aren't.