BEFORE READING ON, please note the date of this article's publication. Today is April 3, not April 1. In other words, what follows is no April Fool's Day celebration.

With the Lioness of Tuzla's campaign taking on still more water and her path to victory looking all but impossible, Barack Obama has emerged as the overwhelming favorite. And you know what that means--soon everyone will be talking about who Obama should select as his running mate.

Let's first discuss what Obama requires in a running mate. Obviously, he desperately needs someone who will balance out his unprecedented lack of experience. The most important thing that needs addressing is his flimsy (i.e. non-existent) military bona fides. Chances are, the analysts will unanimously dictate that Obama needs a veteran on the ticket.

But Obama's credentials deficit runs much deeper. Obama is equally inexperienced in everything else that matters, too. For instance, there's no reason to believe that he's particularly economically literate, or that he's savvy in the ways of congressional dealings. We've learned this week that he certainly he doesn't know the way to the Senate's secret underground bowling alley.

But these are mere pragmatic concerns, and I know the Obama campaign likes to exist on a loftier plane. Therefore, I'll try to discuss things in terms that David Axelrod and perhaps even Obama himself will appreciate. After endorsing Obama, Bill Richardson explained that he did so because, "In my view, Senator Obama represents our

Some people think the aforementioned Richardson would make a good ticket-mate. Sorry--he wouldn't, even if he lost the unbecoming facial hair. In spite of the media's impressive effort to turn a guy who earned about 2 percent of the Democratic party's support in the primaries into a kingmaker when he endorsed Obama, Richardson, as evidenced by his performance in those primaries, is a second-rater. Additionally, in spite of his really nice résumé, Richardson has gravitas issues of his own. Let's not forget that Governor Richardson spent decades boasting about the Oakland A's drafting him when no such thing had occurred.

In the lefty blogosphere, Jim Webb has emerged as Obama's dream running mate. While Webb certainly has the military bona fides for the job, he's only been in the senate for 15 months. Now, please don't take what follows the wrong way--I like Jim Webb and got a lot of heat for saying nice things about him during his race with George Allen. But I don't think Jim Webb is a great politician or even a particularly good one. I don't consider a razor-thin victory over an incumbent who ran the worst campaign in memory the mark of a political titan. Webb also has little tolerance for foolishness, which suggests that he should stay as far away from presidential politics as possible.