Required Reading

1) From the Politico, "Ted Stevens indicted on 7 Counts" by Martin Kady II and John Bresnahan

As they say up in Alaska, oy gevalt. At least that's what they say up there in a Michael Chabon novel. Anyway, the Republican party has a new poster boy for the 2008 election. He's an 84 year-old whose alleged turn-ons include accepting petty gifts without disclosing them.

You know what really grates about this scandal? The almost absurd pettiness. Ted Stevens allegedly compromised his country, his high office and his party for $250,000 worth of "things of value" including a Viking stove. Viking stoves are nice, but when a big-thinker like LBJ used his office for personal gain, he walked away from the dealings a rich man.

Over at the Daily Kos, they are of course hanging the metaphorical bunting to greet this news. The fact that Stevens is up for reelection does not diminish their joy. Or does it? Kos rightly points out that Stevens was an endangered incumbent to begin with. Assuming Stevens does the right thing and falls on his sword (or puts his head in his Viking range to use a more appropriate metaphor) any time up to 48 days before his election, the Republicans can replace him on the ballot. And of course, he hasn't won the nomination yet.

Long story short? Sarah Palin looks good anywhere she goes, but she would look especially good in the United States Senate.

2) From the Washington Post, "Known Unknowns About Obama" by Richard Cohen

Cohen has belatedly discovered that Barack Obama is a man of few accomplishments. One wonders how Cohen finally arrived at this breathtaking conclusion. Has he been attending remedial pundits' school? Here's the introduction:

"Just tell me one thing Barack Obama has done that you admire," I asked a prominent Democrat. He paused and then said that he admired Obama's speech to the Democratic convention in 2004. I agreed. It was a hell of a speech, but it was just a speech.

On the other hand, I continued, I could cite four or five actions -- not speeches -- that John McCain has taken that elicit my admiration, even my awe.

Nice. Now here's a middle passage:

Obama is often likened to John F. Kennedy. It makes sense. He has the requisite physical qualities -- handsome, lean, etc. -- plus wit, intelligence, awesome speaking abilities and a literary bent. He also might be compared to Franklin D. Roosevelt for many of those same qualities. Both FDR and JFK were disparaged early on by their contemporaries for, I think, doing the difficult and making it look easy. Eleanor Roosevelt, playing off the title of Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, airily dismissed him as more profile than courage. Similarly, it was Walter Lippmann's enduring misfortune to size up FDR and belittle him: Roosevelt, he wrote, was "a pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for office, would very much like to be president." Lippmann later recognized that he had underestimated Roosevelt.

You can see the column went downhill rather sharply. Anyway, let's play Cohen's game and "compare" Candidate Obama to Candidate FDR in regards to actual accomplishments, the intellectual software that Cohen trotted out at the start of the column. I must have missed the four years when Obama served as governor of the country's most populous state. Or the time when Obama served as a wartime Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Even more importantly, what has Obama done that shows the character FDR displayed in overcoming his polio-induced paralysis? Yup, Cohen nails it - Obama and FDR are practically two peas in a pod.