Not white and black, or red and blue ... Given how well their campaign slogans mesh together, it's no wonder John Edwards put his defunct catchphrase to good use and backed Barack Obama for president.

The Obama campaign has turned big-name endorsements into an art, revealing a few key supporters every time Hillary Clinton's fortunes seem to be on the rise. Edwards' announcement is no exception — Clinton just swept the West Virginia primary, and according to ABC's Political Radar, had been planning some key fundraisers over the next few days. In addition to hitting her debt-ridden pocketbook, the votes Obama will likely receive from Edwards delegates more than offset the pledged delegates she won last night.

It's not just delegates: As the Radar points out, the move was "a dramatic attempt by the Obama campaign to answer concerns regarding Obama's appeal to working-class voters." The Wall Street Journal's Political Wire sneers:

Edwards could give a boost to Obama’s candidacy by attracting the exact sort of voter that has been Clinton’s strength — white, working-class voters from rust-belt states who are drawn to a populist political philosophy. ...

People close to Edwards have said that he sees deep flaws in both Clinton and Obama. He thinks Obama lacks the fire to wage war against special interests in Washington, and objects that Clinton takes money from lobbyists and is part of the inside-the-beltway aristocracy, which he considers to be the problem with American politics.

If you're looking for hard numbers, NPR points out that 7% of the West Virginia vote went to the former vice presidential candidate, even though he's no longer running. And, at a point when Obama is campaigning against John McCain rather than against Clinton, Edwards might help him finally close the deal — or end the agony, as The Washington Post's The Fix observes:

Edwards is widely seen as one of the major party figures who had remained on the sidelines in the race between Clinton and Obama. That he has stepped in to the fray in hopes of, perhaps, bringing this race to an end should send a powerful signal to undecided superdelegates about the direction of the contest. 

Edwards is the picture of modesty about the power of his endorsement in this MSNBC interview, but you have to wonder about the timing on his end: Is he late to the party or the crucial tiebreaker? Is this a bid for the vice presidency? They'd certainly make a cute ticket.

The Moderate Voice isn't enamored, though. They have a thing or two to say about unifying the party:

If the endorsement is meant to show solidarity by one party member toward one of the candidates, that is a fait acoompli. Unifying the party at this point is likely premature. Unifying isnt done by one person saying ‘unify now.’ It is a far more many layered process that includes more meeting and greeting with many groups and people. That would be later. Not now.

Slate's Trailhead blog, however, says Edward's swing Obama-ward "isn’t the last round of battle; it’s the first round of cleanup":

Enter John Edwards. By endorsing Obama now, Edwards isn’t handing him the nomination. He’s minimizing the damage wrought upon the all-but-inevitable nominee. Clinton insists a drawn-out election isn’t hurting the party. But it is clearly exposing huge holes in each candidate’s armor. By weighing in now, Edwards is reassuring Democrats—and perhaps telegraphing to Kentucky voters—that Obama is a safe choice.

John Edwards: Kingmaker? Deal-closer? Irrelevant? VP material? Post your take below. Also, check out Google's quotes page to judge if Edwards let the cat out of the bag days ago.

Columnist Jonah Goldberg explains what Yucca Mountain and Guantanamo Bay have in common:

Well, there's the obvious stuff. Both have Spanish names. Neither is a great spot for a family vacation. And each is under the control of the federal government.

Oh, and both are essential tools in wars a lot of people claim they want to win.

Boston University's Andrew J. Bacevich argues that Iraq has illustrated the limits of U.S. power and new Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) wants an independent review of the state's revenue. And freelance writer Mary Kolesnikova says KMN (that's "kill me now") in response to a Pew report finding that teens let Internet chat speak into their homework.

The editorial board notes a new study finding that many Iraq veterans suffer from untreated brain injuries, and supports a state bill that would create CalPERS-managed portable retirement plans for private employees. The board also laments the sad state of the Southern California bookstore and the latest one to fall into financial dire straits, Libreria Martinez:

...Libreria Martinez, Santa Ana's nationally honored Latino-themed bookstore, is now threatened. After all, how many booksellers win a MacArthur Foundation genius grant? (Though Rueben Martinez was forced to use some of that $500,000 to pay his store's bills.) For that matter, how odd is it that the landlord forcing the store to move is a charter school for the arts with a well-regarded creative writing program?

On the letters page, readers react to the notion that Barack Obama's biggest problem is his elitism, not his race. Long Beach's Charles Q. Clay III says, "Hogwash! Obama has exactly half as many Ivy League degrees as our current president, who, you might recall, was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and was not raised by a single mother on food stamps."

European policy experts John C. Hulsman and A. Wess Mitchell look to 'The Godfather' for diplomatic pointers:

[Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather"] is also a startlingly useful metaphor for the strategic problems and global power structure of our time. The don, emblematic of Cold War American power, is struck by forces he did not expect and does not understand, as was America on 9/11. Intriguingly, his heirs embrace very different visions of family strategy that approximate the three schools of thought -- liberal institutionalism, neoconservatism and realism -- vying for control of U.S. foreign policy today.

Freelance writer Lionel Beehner has another proposal for smoother diplomacy: pronouncing foreign dignitaries' names properly. Columnist Tim Rutten tells an L.A. version of "A Tale of Two Cities," and contributing editor Erin Aubry Kaplan explores why poet and long-time Watts resident Eric Priestley is fighting City Hall to keep his home.

The editorial board praises a California Supreme Court decision voiding the death sentence of Adam Miranda, presses for a shield law, and says now isn't the time to scold Myanmar's leaders:

It has been clear for more than a decade -- and especially since last year's suppression of the would-be Saffron Revolution -- that Myanmar's odious junta cannot be shamed into reform. It is too isolated and xenophobic to worry about its image, too paranoid to learn from outsiders and too blood-drenched to believe it can survive any loosening of control over its hapless people. The contradictory combination of U.S. sanctions and an engagement strategy adopted by its neighbors has failed to produce any improvement. Attempts to use the catastrophe of Tropical Cyclone Nargis as leverage to pry open the country will almost surely fail as well.

The problem with writing for a family newspaper — or being a screenwriter for a TV show on basic cable, for that matter — is that there are times when the most apt possible word for the situation you’re trying to describe or the dialogue you’re trying to convey is forbidden by company policy, or FCC regulations, or common decency. That is why I am so frakking in love with "Battlestar Gallactica."

The Sci Fi Channel hit didn’t coin the word "frak." It was introduced in the original 1978 series on ABC, though its meaning on that show was quite a bit more benign; the context in which it was used made it clear that it was a substitute for a harmless euphemism like "darn." In the new version of "Battlestar," which is free of blow-dried haircuts, adorable robot dogs or former "Bonanza" stars, the writers make it quite clear that "frak" means exactly the same as a common four-letter English word that starts with "F" and ends with "K." Hence you get words like "motherfrakker" and "clusterfrak," and phrases like, "We are well and truly frakked."

This all might seem a little childish, but it’s actually incredibly liberating. Screenwriters can write the kind of dialogue for basic cable that’s normally only allowed on a pay-cable channel. (I challenge even the stoutest frat boy to take a drink every time somebody drops an F-bomb on the HBO show "Deadwood.") You simply cannot accurately convey the chatter of a bunch of sweaty, tattooed, futuristic fighter pilots, who make up much of the cast of "Battlestar," without throwing in some colorful language. With "frak," you can do that without offending a soul: Even the most righteous member of the Parents Television Council would have a tough time objecting to a curse word that only has meaning in an alternate universe.

Which is why I hope this whole "frak" thing catches on. When you’re writing about government policy, sometimes the situation is so frakked up, involving people who know frak-all about basic economics or the unintended consequences of bad public policy, that you just frakking want to tell them to frak off.
Frak, that feels good.

Top of the Ticket blogger Don Frederick notes that Hillary Clinton has spoken out on one of the most pressing issues of the day — the racy Miley Cyrus photos. She told Yahoo:

"From everything I've heard she's a great kid and obviously very talented, but I think we need to do more to preserve our kids' childhood," Clinton said.

The presidential hopeful said she feels it is the parents' responsibility to protect a child.

"They grow up so fast and [there are] so many influences coming from all directions these days," Clinton said. "I think it's important that all of us as parents draw some lines here."

Let's leave aside whether the pics are appropriately allusive to classicism and the realities of contemporary young adulthood or plain creepy (and really, isn't the one of her with daddy Billy Ray way creepier?). And let's also ignore that people over the age of 18 probably can't even understand the Miley Cyrus-was-Destiny-Hope-is-Miley-Stewart-is-Hannah-Montana identity uroboros despite Slate's helpful explanation.

Instead, I'd just like to point out that John McCain and Barack Obama have both appeared with Miley Cyrus and seem to be supporters of her confounding identity politics and her corruption of American youth. I'm waiting for McCain and Obama to prove they're also for The Children with full Miley denunciations/renunciations/throws-under-the-bus.

*Photo courtesy the Associated Press.

Big Sunday founder David T. Levinson reflects on the idiosyncrasies of pop volunteerism, and Ronald Brownstein picks apart John McCain's true views on the U.S. military's future in Iraq. Merrick J. Bob, executive director of the Police Assessment Resource Center, investigates better ways to track racial profiling by LAPD officers, and cartoonist Rob Rogers snarks at Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton's problem relationships. Joel Stein finds out that a new citizen's vote is worth $6 and a cookie:

There's an emotional ceremony every month in which 3,500 newly naturalized citizens pledge their loyalty to the United States, and it really feels like they've joined a community of shared values, goals and purpose. Then, as soon as they pass through the gates of the L.A. County fairgrounds and enter the parking lot, they are charged from the right by Republicans and from the left by Democrats, begging them to register to vote. It is a bit like kissing the bride and being told your new father-in-law is a Capulet and your mother-in-law's a Montague and they've each registered you for a Glock.

The editorial board calls for the Supreme Court to let a murder victim's posthumous testimony stand, and wonders how to turn the beleaguered Santa Barbara Plaza project around. The board also whips out its pen to defend taco trucks against a new L.A. County ordinance:

Supervisors may have expected the new law to attract little controversy; after all, it was backed by Eastside restaurateurs and developers, a group with considerably more money and political power than the largely immigrant entrepreneurs who own taco trucks. But it has raised the ire of a far larger group: the thousands of Angelenos who have long gathered at taco trucks, in many cases since childhood, for quick carnitas burritos or mouthwatering cemitas, central Mexican sandwiches filled with avocado, cheese, fried meat and other gut-busting goodness. An Internet-driven movement started by a pair of Highland Park residents has already produced 2,200 signatures on a petition to repeal the law. Sign us up too.

Readers also react to the LAPD's dismissal of all complaints of racial profiling from last year. Leni Fleming writes:

"Los Angeles Police Department officials announced Tuesday that they investigated more than 300 complaints of racial profiling against officers last year and found that none had merit" is, bar none, the most hilarious sentence I have ever read in The Times.

And I'm white!

Otherwise, I'd be undergoing the trauma associated with discovering that your man-of-steel childhood hero is really a blathering hack. First, there was his light-hearted TV spot endorsing Republican Mike Huckabee that played on Norris' martial arts cred. Now we have his most recent rambling column on illegal immigration, which reads as if Norris were a guest on Art Bell's paranormal-themed radio show (for a real treat, skip down to his assertion that the federal government's shoot-to-kill security for Area 51 provides a decent model for patrolling the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border).

Finding an excerpt from Norris' column that best encapsulates the paranoid wing of the restrictionist movement is a tall order, as every paragraph is a pretty good candidate. This one, however, needs no summary:

Unfortunately, illegal transport of immigrants, terrorists and other contraband is only going to worsen, especially with the possible creation of a North American Union (with Canada and Mexico) and the so-called NAFTA Superhighways. Unless of course we stop it! (How is it that we can militarily overthrow a government like Iraq, yet we can't militarily keep illegalities from crossing our borders?) As Mike Huckabee still says, "If the government can't track illegals, then let's outsource the job to UPS or Fed-Ex."

You couldn't write a better caricature of the anti-immigrant Chicken Littles. Of course, Norris is dead serious.

Tim Rutten marvels at the questionable artistic value of "Grand Theft Auto IV," and writer Gary Ferguson laments the senseless violence that hunters are unleashing on the gray wolf, just released from the endangered species list. New York University professor Stephen F. Cohen says hold the baloney: It's the U.S., not Russia, that's responsible for the heightened tensions of late:

During the last eight years, Putin's foreign policies have been largely a reaction to Washington's winner-take-all approach to Moscow since the early 1990s, which resulted from a revised U.S. view of how the Cold War ended. In that new, triumphalist narrative, the U.S. won the 40-year conflict and post-Soviet Russia was a defeated nation analogous to post-World War II Germany and Japan -- a nation without full sovereignty at home or autonomous national interests abroad.

The editorial board also worries about the gray wolf, and calls on Mexico's politicians not to fuel the debate over the future of the nation's oil industry with hot air. The board also gives Obama a thumbs-up for not falling victim to easy political gimmicks as gas prices rise:

High gas prices can prompt political hysteria in the best of times, but when they soar during an election year, the fumes rising from candidate stump speeches can make a person sick. Of the three candidates and the president they're out to replace, only one is telling the truth about oil -- and he may suffer for his political courage.

Readers rip into an editorial commending McCain for not indulging in political pandering. Fred Sokolow asks:

In your editorial, you characterize McCain as boldly preaching an unpopular message, but it's the same old, tired, free-market deregulation dogma.

There's nothing contrarian about it -- it's the Bush line, which has put America in the terrible spot we're in today.

Won't you begin to assess this guy for what he really is? He's no maverick; he's a throwback, and more of the same poison that's been killing America (and Americans, and Iraqis) for seven years.

Immigration reform may be down and out, but it doesn't mean Congress can't agree on important immigration issues — such as ensuring that supermodels, singers and athletes have an easier time getting into the United States. From Sunday's L.A. Times:

Even in polarized Washington, Democrats and Republicans can appreciate immigrants who throw a fast pitch, have a beautiful face or sing a catchy song. Bills to make it easier for athletes, fashion models and performers, such as British singer Amy Winehouse, to work in the United States have enthusiastic support, even from some of the most hard-nosed immigration critics.

Yep, this is what immigration legislation has been reduced to in the name of progress. Not that I'm complaining — a little reform is better than none at all, right?

The legislation does deal with a more pressing problem: Many models have to apply for an H-1B skilled worker visa. This further limits the number of those priceless documents available to tech companies, which face a desperate annual scramble for international talent. But there is a solution in the making:

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) proposed a solution that could address Silicon Valley's hunger for skilled foreigners and benefit his city's fashion industry. His bill would create a new category for those models, probably limited to about 1,000 five-year visas, and would free up H-1B visas for more engineers. 

Ranking subcommittee member Lamar Smith (R-Texas) had something to say about that:

He said he could picture Weiner (who is single, handsome and 43) "in a posh downtown New York City hotel celebrating the passage of this bill surrounded by hundreds of energized, wildly ecstatic fashion models. And you know for a fact he's going to have an annual celebration. It's almost too much to bear."

Smith paused. "But not too much to oppose the bill."

Given my obsession with the celebrity endorsement, I couldn't resist posting this one, courtesy E! Online:

Barack Obama just scored another Hollywood endorsement.

E! reality star Kim Kardashian is backing the Illinois senator in his bid for the White House. She revealed her support last night at the launch party for ex-jailbird Joe Francis’ Girls Gone Wild magazine at Area nightclub in L.A.

“I had dinner with him [Obama] once, and he just seemed very firm about the change, and that’s, like, his motto,” Kardashian said, referring to the slogan "Change We Can Believe In."

As E! is quick to note (and the Obama camp must be grateful), accidental celeb Kardashian did not dine with the senator alone -- the meeting took place at an event.

If celebrity endorsements are already fairly useless unless they're wackily self-aware enough for an image boost, what about the endorsement from the useless celebrity? Useful, or extra useless? Yes, I know the answer to that. Well, at least Kardashian can put some of her sex-tape cash toward Obama's campaign -- a quick search through the Center for Responsive Politics turns up no evidence of a donation.

UCLA graduate student and Chow Digest senior editor C. Thi Nguyen bemoans L.A. County's requirement that taco trucks move after one hour, and New York attorney Scott Horton analyzes UC Berkeley professor John Yoo's role in the Bush administration's stance on torture. Former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan hopes LAUSD will repair its relationship with charter schools, and Gregory Rodriguez scratches his head at Americans' insistence that politicians act like the average Joe:

Sure, high-ranking politicians of humble origins can lay at least some claim to being "common." But that's really a ruse. Because the best politicians wouldn't get as far as they do if they hadn't already successfully convinced large numbers of people that they were distinct from -- read: better than -- the rest of us.

And therein lies our dilemma. We hold to the belief that we are all equal, yet we yearn for distinctiveness for ourselves and those we choose to represent us. In a nation whose form of government exalts the illusion of uniformity among its citizens, we are collectively engaged in a struggle to be recognized as unique by our peers.

The editorial board publishes its endorsements for 17 seats on the Los Angeles Superior Court, and puts its money behind a House bill to force 401(k) managers to clarify the fees they charge "Jack and Jill Cubicle":

Unfortunately, as this newspaper detailed in a series of articles in 2006, many employees aren't being told how much of their nest egg is being frittered away on fees paid to the companies managing their 401(k)s. Buried in the fine print of incomprehensible forms or not disclosed at all, those fees can consume thousands of dollars over time. To address that problem, several lawmakers have introduced bills that would require mutual funds, insurers and other providers of retirement plans to make complete disclosures of their fees to employers and workers. 

Readers react to the Supreme Court's decision finding legal injections humane. Writes Joy Buckley, "State-sanctioned killing is barbaric, cruel and should be highly unusual. We should join the civilized countries of the world in eliminating it."

Remember that Red Sox jersey that a construction worker — who also happened to be a Sox fan — dropped into the wet concrete of the New York Yankees' fresh, new stadium? And how the Yankees spent a cool fifty grand to dig it right back out, fearing a Red Sox curse embedded in their home field — a decision the editorial board called "a reminder that for all of humanity's pretensions to modernity and reason, we are essentially just bald monkeys who wear shoes"?

Yeah, now it's on eBay. Just posted yesterday — and as further demonstration of humanity's supersitious nature and penchant for totems, it's already racked up 116 pre-approved bids and is sitting pretty at $37,600. But if you think it's going to go to cover the Yankees' deconstruction costs, you don't give the baseball industry enough credit: Proceeds go to the cancer-fighting nonprofit Jimmy Fund. Proof that while you couldn't make this stuff up, that doesn't mean there can't be a happy ending. Or at least, a face-saving one.

*Photo courtesy AP.

Psychologist Carol Tavris and oncologist Avrum Bluming put the latest breast cancer scare in perspective, and cartoonist J.D. Crowe comments on Hillary Clinton and John McCain's accusations of "elitism" against Barack Obama. Web editor Tim Cavanaugh wonders if the Vermont/Manchester project can survive the gentrification wars, and Patt Morrison searches between California's seat cushions for some spare change:

From Yreka to San Ysidro, official California is busted flat. We're so broke that Fabian Nuñez is probably drinking Two-Buck Chuck.

The temptations to make ends meet with corporate/civic deals are enormous. Budget Helper recipes can be a blessing for cities and states through the lean years, or they can become desperate sellouts that elected bodies can't scrape off their shoes once times turn good again.

The editorial board slams the state Legislature for neglecting the inmate medical system — and leaving California with a $7-billion bill — and sounds the alarm on world hunger as one of the greatest threats to international stability. The board also rolls its eyes at the New York Yankees' quest to dig a Red Sox jersey out of its new stadium:

... when somebody in the Yankees' front office ordered construction workers on Sunday to drill chunks out of the foundation — a five-hour job that cost a reported $50,000 — in order to remove the voodoo Fan Merchandise of Doom, it became clear that this incident was more than just a harmless sports prank. It was a reminder that for all of humanity's pretensions to modernity and reason, we are essentially just bald monkeys who wear shoes.

Readers provide some perspective on closing U.S. detention facilities at Guantanamo. Maria Matan writes:

Having just watched the better part of the "John Adams" series on HBO, and having a basic knowledge of the Constitution, it seems to me unlikely that our founding fathers would have stood behind the Bush administration's assumption that offshore detentions at Guantanamo can be justified without sufficient evidence to bring charges.

Hey would-be Beijing protestors, watch out for Jackie Chan. The Hong Kong action hero isn't putting up with any lip, as Chicago Sun-Times columnist Bill Zwecker reports:

Chan told me he's also going to be part of the torch relay once it nears Beijing. Demonstrating one of his famous kung fu moves with his hands, he quipped, "Demonstrators better not get anywhere close to me" -- a clear challenge to those who might want to disrupt his and the torch's progress.

How would Chan hold up in a head-to-head with a certain celebrity Tibet champion? No, not Steven Spielberg, but Steven Seagal. The two martial artists are friends, or at least so says IMDB, but to settle this subject, they might have to take it outside. Who'd win?

The winner: Jackie. Now enjoy some of his best fights.

Italian columnist Massimo Franco heralds the Vatican's first official visit to the U.S. by explaining what took them so long, and cartoonist Rob Rogers wonders if the people running American Airlines into the ground are flying the Iraq war, too. Former CNN correspondent Mike Chinoy calls on the U.S., North Korea and South Korea to repair their damaged relationships, and Gregory Rodriguez considers boycotting Absolut vodka for its ads that raised Americans' "reconquista" paranoia:

Last week I was in Las Vegas, and I found myself having a depressing chat with a Croatian maid at the Mandalay Bay hotel. "Your name is Rodriguez, are you Spanish?" she asked. "No," I told her, "I'm Mexican American." To which she responded glumly, "then pretty soon, this land will be yours. You are taking over."

The editorial board looks into public workers' immunity from traffic tickets and tolls, and finds a "disturbing recalibration of public accountability." The board also approves of President Bush's call for the government to guarantee loans for sub-prime borrowers, and expects Mayor Villaraigosa to prove in his State of the City address that he has a "firm grip" on the budget and gang violence:

The issues are intertwined. Villaraigosa has adopted as his own the priority his predecessors placed on increasing the number of Los Angeles Police Department officers ready to serve. The LAPD of today is larger -- and the city safer -- in part because the mayor insisted on increasing the fees that residents pay to get their trash picked up. Those higher fees aren't earmarked for more officers, and they still don't cover the cost of garbage collection, but the new revenue has given the mayor and the City Council the flexibility they needed to increase police hiring.

Readers size up Army Gen. David Petraeus' "ribbon creep" against other military icons. Eric Johnson points out:

Ike went on to lead this country ably, if quietly, warning us against the military-industrial complex gaining so much power, and Marsdhall earned the gratitude of an entire generation of Europeans, including those we defeated. Where are the generals of that caliber now?

Thomas Sowell excoriates Barack Obama in a column that says the candidate's relationship with Jeremiah Wright indicates deeper problems. According to Sowell, a passage from the book Dreams From My Father, in which the author discusses his college-era comrades, reveals that Obama's fondness for racial exremists goes way back:

These friends included "Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk rock performance poets" -- in Obama's own words -- as well as the "more politically active black students." He later visited a former member of the terrorist Weatherman underground, who endorsed him when he ran for state senator.

Obama didn't just happen to encounter Jeremiah Wright, who just happened to say some way out things.

For Sowell, this proves Obama "was trying to become a convert to blackness" and seeking "a racial identity that he had never really experienced in growing up in a white world."

I have no beef with Sowell's judgment on Obama's fondness for "members of the left, anti-American counter-culture." But his citation here indicates a misunderstanding of popular culture that is glaring even for a 78-year-old economist.

To wit: If you were looking to find your own blackness, in Obama's day or (to a slightly lesser extent) now, you might possibly cozy up to Marxist professors. There's a very outside chance you might associate with structural feminists. But you would not go anywhere near punk rock performance poets.

Punk was many things, but it was first and foremost white-kid music. I neither praise nor condemn punk for that. It just is — or was: These days, we have Afro-Punk, and we have black punkers willing to speak about the genre's racial divides. But back then, it was vanishingly rare to find any color but untanned-pale in punk rock. Indeed, the hints of white supremacy that always circled around Siouxsie and the Banshees and New Order should be the tipoff. When Obama claims alliances with punkers, he is doing the exact opposite of what Sowell accuses him of: He's indicating his willingness to make friends across racial and cultural lines.

I don't think Obama should be praised for that, as I always find something vain and self-regarding in bragging about your disreputable friends. But a decent respect for the truth demands that we point this out. During the candidate's misspent youth, the only hint of black identity you were likely to find in the punk universe was Sy Richardson's bravura performance in Repo Man.

Update: Interesting discussion of the history of black punk in the comments. Thanks to everybody who contributed.

Long before he was identified as a mouthpiece for Bill Cinton, James Carville was (in)famous in my home state of Pennsylvania for the “guru ad,” a 1986 campaign commercial for the original Bob Casey  that savaged Casey’s Republican opponent for governor, Bill Scranton III, as a  follower of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The ad, which showed the image of a younger, long-haired Scranton to the sinister accompaniment of sitar music, was aired only in the conservative midsection of Pennsylvania and not in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia.  Casey won.

I thought of the guru ad the other day when The Politico recycled, and desconstructed, a famous Carville exercise in political geograophy. I always thought Carville had described the Keystone State as “Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with Mississippi in the middle.” But The Politico’s version was more parochial still: “Carville described the state as Paoli (a suburb of Philadelphia) and Penn Hills (a suburb of Pittsburgh) with Alabama in between.”

Alabama, Mississippi — what’s the difference? Either way, Carville was equating my native state’s Bible Belt — and receptive audience for guru-bashing ads — as Hicksville, a point that sticks in the craw of some Southerners.

I’ve been to both Penn Hills and Paoli, and they are as different from each other as either is from Pottsville, Pa. — or Punxatawney, of “Groundhog Day” fame. Pennsylvania is a big place, and a diverse one, which is why Carville’s caricature was onto something in its crude way.

Pennsylvania is enjoying its day in the political sun now that — for the first  time in my career as a journalist — its presidential primary is actually the object of national attention. If nothing else, this unaccustomed attention will mean some journalistic pilgrimages to the cheesesteak emporiums of Philadelphia, the shot-and-a-beer bars of Pittsburgh and the pecan farms — I mean pretzel factories — of Hanover.

Considering that other than the occasional round of Wii Tennis, I haven't played a video game since I failed to beat "Legend of Zelda" in the late 1980s, I'm not the best person to comment on the medium.

But an educational immigration game arrived on the Internets not too long ago, so I gave it a try. (OK, actually, it was kind of long ago, it got some news last year, and an official release came out in February.)

The game is from Breakthrough.tv and it's called "I Can End Deportation," or ICED, for short (a play, of course, on the agency in charge of said deportation). You pick one of five characters -- from an undocumented Mexican immigrant to a Japanese student to a girl who thinks she's a citizen -- and try to avoid getting deported, while learning about what trials immigrants, legal or not, have to suffer.

It's a conversation-starter about an aspect of immigration policy avoided by many moderates, who need to be tough on enforcement or who may simply assume that the deportation process works well enough (unlike, say, actual worksite or border enforcement). They don't worry much about the process, unless it goes seriously awry.

And though the game may be criticized as such, it isn't a primer for anyone who's actually evading authorities. Of course, the name alone makes it clear that the game makers weren't exactly trying to avoid controversy. (See what the game's creator has to say about the reaction she has received here.)

The kingmaking Kennedys may be the most high-profile family whose allegiance has split along Clinton-Obama lines, but the Murdochs offer their own intriguing form of political discord.

If you think they're dealing with a red-blue divide (as when Republican presidential hopeless Rudy Giuliani's daughter endorsed Obama — ouch), think again: The infamously conservative media mogul responsible for FOX News' impeccable journalism has actually put his money on Hillary Clinton. The International Herald Tribune explains:

Rupert Murdoch is a well-known conservative, and his New York Post newspaper was a longtime foe of former President Clinton and Hillary Clinton during his two terms in the White House and her first run for the U.S. Senate in New York in 2000.

Since then, the couple have worked to reach a detente with the paper and its owner. The Post endorsed Hillary Clinton's re-election bid in 2006, and Rupert Murdoch hosted a fundraiser for her senatorial campaign.

In January, however, the Post endorsed Clinton's rival, Obama, for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.

The Post may have broken away from Murdoch, but his daughter Lis, a TV tycoon in her own right, has upped the ante by hosting a fundraiser for Obama at her London digs. Further proof that, no matter what commenter Michael says about Jane Fonda over at Top of the Ticket, no endorsement (however weird) is a bad one. Unless it's from President Bush.

In short, politics makes for fascinating family drama — and the whole epic "the future is at stake" angle is a crowd pleaser. Seriously, when are we getting the reality TV show about celebrity campaigners? CNN can't have all the fun. Besides, straight news is beginning to sound like it's in reruns: Obama! Hillary! Race! Gender! Scandal? ... Repeat.

The state Supreme Court is in Los Angeles this afternoon to consider this question: How blatantly does a prosecutor have to exploit a case for big Hollywood or book bucks before the case is compromised?

The better known of the two cases focuses on the movie "Alpha Dog" and the real-life prosecution of Jesse James Hollywood in the kidnapping and killing of Nicholas Markowitz. Santa Barbara Deputy District Attorney Ronald J. Zonen, who was assigned to prosecute Hollywood, also served as an unpaid consultant to writer/director Nick Cassavetes in the making of the film. In October 2006, an appeals court ruled that Zonen had created a conflict of interest that should prevent him from proceeding with the case.

Then there is the "Intoxicating Agent" case, in which Santa Barbara Deputy District Attorney Joyce Dudley wrote a book describing the prosecution of a man for drugging and sexually assaulting his victim. She happened to be prosecuting, at the time, a man for drugging and sexually assaulting his victim. The supposedly fictional heroine is prosecutor Joyce, uh, no, sorry -- Jordan Danner. The appeals court ruled that Dudley, like Zonen, had compromised her ability to continue prosecuting the case.

You know what they say about Santa Barbara prosecutors. What they really want to be is waiters and waitresses in Los Angeles...so they can say that what they really want to be is screenwriters.

Haraguchi v. Superior Court -- that's Dudley's case -- and Hollywood v. Superior Court are both scheduled for oral arguments at 1:30 p.m. at the Reagan State Building at 300 S. Spring St. in downtown Los Angeles.

Fred Karger still sees hope for the Boom Boom Room, the legendary gay bar in Laguna Beach that closed last year after a 61-year run. He's rallying supporters tomorrow at the Century City headquarters of American International Group, the building's owner.

It's a long shot, but Karger -- an activist now retired from politics -- wants the Room eventually to reopen. Click here for John Keitel's film on the Boom Boom Room's place in history and efforts to save it. Featured are former Laguna Beach Mayor Robert Gentry and current Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who describes hearing loud music down the street, walking in and finding "an incredible, positive, happy group of gays and lesbians."

Chelsea Clinton may not actually speak to the press, but she's finally getting some. She faced two fairly controversial questions from the non-press-pass-holding hoi polloi. The first was a college kid in Indiana who had to mention Monica. From Top of the Ticket:

...some guy asked Chelsea if her mother's credibility had been injured by the infamous sexual relationship her father had with the White House intern.

"Wow," said Chelsea, "you're the first person actually that's ever asked me that question in the, I don't know, maybe 70 college campuses I've now been to.''

Then, she fired: "And I do not think that is any of your business."

The reply drew loud applause.

And today, Fox News is reporting that when asked whether her mother would make a better president than her father, Chelsea sided with Hillary:

“Well again, I don’t take anything for granted, but hopefully with Pennsylvania’s help she will be our next president, and yes, I do think she’ll be a better president,” Clinton said at a stop in Allentown, Pa.

The last time Chelsea made such a splash might have been for something she said in private, responding to her mother's claim that young people have a bad work ethic (neglecting, apparently, the hard work her own daughter was doing). Hillary publicly apologized to Chelsea. The former first daughter was famously sensitive about the press as a teen at 1600 Pennsylvania and still is today, it seems. The Bush twins are regular, if unintentional, celebutantes by comparison.

In the increasingly unlikely event that she's first daughter again, how would Chelsea behave? Would she work behind the scenes, or help First Dude Bill with domestic tasks? Or would she stick to her private life outside DC? The young Obama daughters would probably be kept behind the scenes. Probably only Meghan McCain could follow up the Bush twins for media presence and fashion sense.

*Photos of Chelsea Clinton and Meghan McCain courtesy AP.

Author and UCLA lecturer Lawrence Grobel finds his past on sale at Amazon.com:

We printed 2,000 copies of each issue and sold them for 50 cents each. So, imagine my surprise when I recently discovered that Amazon.com had a listing under my name that said: "SATYR . Paperback. Used. $366."

$366! Was this a joke?

I went to the site offering the three issues for sale, and sure enough, it was for real. Only at Zubal.com they were listed at $348.20. It was also offering a first edition of my 812-page biography, "The Hustons," for $1.

Columnist Joel Stein discovers a shady journalistic cover-up: celeb mag editors-at-large aren't really editors, they just play them on TV. Human Rights Watch's Jennifer Daskal and Leslie Lefkow say that U.S. policy suffers when missile strikes on alleged terrorists go awry.

The editorial board criticizes John McCain's answer to the credit crisis, examines what lies ahead for new UC President Mark Yudof, and hails Starbucks and the upscaling of America:

[T]he Starbucks model -- a global-village blend of faux-Italianate lingo, American efficiency and post-modern abundance of selection, all built on the easy international flow of coffee beans -- is everywhere, readily reproduced by McDonald's, Dunkin' Donuts and any old bodega.

It's the happy flip-side of living in a country where even the poor people are fat.

On the letters page, readers discuss Jonah Goldberg's column claiming we were having a race conversation long before Barack Obama's speech. Phil Boiarsky of Columbus, Ohio disagrees, saying, " I am 63 years old, and this is the first time I have heard the 'white' side of the issue."

In the Chronicle of Higher Education, Willis G. Regier surveys Aesop translations:

Nine translators dominated Aesop in English over the past 500 years, and new ones are vying for attention. What do the translations show? Most obviously, some Aesops have more Aesop, much more, than others. Some have been much more reprinted, and more popular. And some change the fables: In some editions a lion outwits three bulls, in others four. Animals are altered: A weasel in one translation is a cat in another, toads become frogs, crows become ravens, a bear becomes a tiger, a lion becomes a leopard, and so on.

There follows a colorful tale of Royalists fighting Roundheads, Anglicans lecturing souls into heav'n, and the winner of the best-overall-translation wreath: Laura Gibbs' Aesop's Fables. Yet it still leaves my lifelong Aesop question unanswered...

What the hell is the fable "The Man and the Satyr" about?

Here, try reading another version of the tale. Or try this one and see if you can figure out what the moral could possibly be.

Is the moral that satyrs are too dumb to understand rudimentary heat transfer?

Or is the idea that the satyr is right, and it is wrong to produce breath that is warmer than frost but colder than porridge? That seems to be the point of this version, which includes a moral:

The man who talks for both sides is not to be trusted by either.

So, I give up: Why is a man who maintains a body temperature of 98.6 fahrenheit more or less trustworthy than any other man who maintains the same body temperature? Do you need to know the temperature of satyr breath to understand this one?

Contributing editor Michael Kinsley asks a question few have dared -- how long does it take Hillary Clinton to do her make-up? He writes:

Every day for almost two years, the candidates campaign. The average day is probably 15 to 20 hours. The average amount of sleep could be four hours. Yet, every day, the male candidates can sleep an extra precious half-hour or more -- or spend the time cramming for the day -- simply because our culture doesn't impose the same rules on them about their appearance.

And these really are rules. Sure, there are women who take no more trouble about their appearance than most men do, and men who take more than the typical woman. But a middle-aged woman who is the first of her sex to make a serious run for the presidency is not going to be a pioneer in indifference to looks. One revolution at a time. She has got to look put together, all day, every day.

Columnist Rosa Brooks warns her fellow mothers against aggressively marketed, often orphaned Disney princesses. The Center for European Policy Analysis' A. Wess Mitchell notes the efforts of NATO's newer members in Afghanistan. And Harold Hall, wrongly convicted and imprisoned for 20 years, says his case shows why the state should reconsider execution.

The editorial board highlights the need for transparency in the LAPD, examines Mexico's raging drug war as it hits a small border town, and argues for habeas rights for two U.S. citizens held in Iraq.

Readers consider California's law against driving while cell-phoning. Valencia's Lisa Stevenson says:

We have always been eating, drinking coffee, reading road maps, changing radio stations, applying makeup, shaving, talking to passengers, disciplining children, groping for dropped gum, staring at sign-twirlers and beating out drum solos on our steering wheels while driving. Yet there are no laws banning these activities.

Here's one for the "Who Knew?" files: the news media's attention to the sub-prime fiasco rises and falls in step with its fascination with Britney Spears. Coincidence? I think not! I would not have noticed this linkage had it not been for Trendrr, a fascinating site that recently went live. An offshoot of Wiredset, a New York agency that specializes in promoting media through the Web, social networks and mobile carriers, Trendrr lets users assemble and compare data from a dozen sources (more to come soon), including Google News, Bit Torrent, eBay and YouTube. It also invites users to request new sources or submit their own. For example, you might want to gauge interest in a particular band by seeing how often people were posting videos of that act on YouTube. Or, if you were a studio, you could graf how often the trailer for your summer blockbuster was being played on MySpace.com vs. YouTube vs. DailyMotion. My examples don't do Trendrr justice, so click here to check out the site's most popular trend-mapping exercises. Then try creating some of your own.

Columnist Gregory Rodriguez says Barack Obama's speech on race may have been brilliant, but it was the wrong move:

Throughout the campaign, Hillary Rodham Clinton's surrogates repeatedly tried to bait Obama into talking about race; they worked to pigeonhole him (and marginalize him) as the "black candidate." But in the end, it was Obama's own alliances that tripped him up and obliged him to directly address a subject (one that he now says we "cannot afford to ignore") that he had so deftly avoided -- or as the Obamaphiles had it, transcended. For all the kudos the Illinois senator has received for his candor, the very act of delivering Tuesday's address was a defeat. Obama was a much more powerful force for racial progress when he so effortlessly symbolized it, rather than when he called on us to address "old wounds."

Assemblyman Van Tran (R-Garden Grove) argues that SAT subject tests should stay, in part because they give recent immigrants a chance to show their strengths. Loyola Law Schools' Karl Manheim and Consumer Watchdog's Jamie Court say health insurance mandates of the Clinton and Obama kind may not pass constitutional muster. And writer Joe Queenan wonders why Garth Brooks gets a spot in his kid's academic calendar.

The editorial board notes new Census numbers showing that California sprawl is slowing down, and looks at why double amputee Oscar Pistorius was barred from the Olympics for being too fast. The board also explores why Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger dismissed fellow film icon Clint Eastwood and brother-in-law Bobby Shriver from a state commission.

Readers react to the violence in Tibet. Sherman Oaks' Elke Heitmyer says, "Tibet has been 'another Burma' for a long time already."

Becoming the second cute ad girl apostate in this campaign, the sleeping child from Hillary Clinton's much-maligned TV spot says she supports Barack Obama. It turns out that the Clinton camp bought old stock footage for the ad (probably a common enough practice) and that adorably endangered little girl is now of voting age:

[Casey] Knowles, a senior at Bonney Lake High School who turns 18 next month, has been campaigning for Obama.... If she plays her cards right, she could go to the national convention.

Not to mention that she could be in another ad. After her identity became known, Obama's campaign contacted her.

Until the Knowles turnaround, the phone call ad seemed like an almost fortunate distraction from Jack Nicholson's endorsement for Hillary, released at about the same time. Getting a plug from a definitively cool actor (even if he's starting to show his age) seems like pure gravy, unless, of course, the plug strings together clips of said actor's best-known roles, like The Joker, Jack Torrance (as in, all work and no play make...), and Col. Nathan R. Jessup.

Does Clinton really want Jack Torrance saying "things could be better," and suggesting she's the one to make them so? (By the way, that line's referring to a problem with his wife, whom he refers to later in that scene as "the ol' sperm bank".) And what about Jessup's quip that there's nothing hotter than saluting a chick? Way to alienate those uptight Clinton-loving feminists, Jack! Using two homocidal maniacs and one cruel Gitmo-stationed officer in an endorsement doesn't seem so smart, especially when Obama has will.i.am stringing together pretty young celebs.

The Clinton campaign could use a better ad-star/candidate match, like that cutest of campaigning couples, Chuck and Huck. Oh wait, Norris screwed up too. And though the troops in Iraq may love him, there's one Norris fact that probably rubs war supporters slightly the wrong way: "There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Chuck Norris lives in Oklahoma."

The editorial board examines global insurgency after a violent few weeks around the world:

Last week's news underscored the problem. In Afghanistan, Taliban fighters, who enjoy sanctuary in Pakistan, blew up a fourth telecommunications tower as part of a campaign to silence cellphone service at night. In Pakistan, missiles of unknown origin smashed into a Taliban compound in what appeared to be the second unacknowledged U.S. Predator strike into that country this year. Turkey struck at Kurdish rebel enclaves over the border in northern Iraq. From Gaza, Hamas pelted Israeli towns with increasingly longer-ranged missiles. And Colombia, fed up with attacks by guerrillas from jungle camps in Ecuador, staged a cross-border raid and was denounced across Latin America for violating Ecuadorean sovereignty.

Wiping out terrorist sanctuaries after 9/11 wasn't supposed to be so difficult -- except that it always has been. The Bush administration assumed that swift and massive U.S. military might, followed by democracy and massive infusions of money for development, would sweep the terrorists into the dustbin of history. It hasn't happened anywhere.

The board also looks at California's electricity deregulation ten years later, and says a new cap-and-trade plan could be just as disastrous.

As if global insurgency weren't bad enough, author Philip Jenkins thinks conditions are ripe for home-grown terrorism. And East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice director Angelo Logan says that a firm that wans to expand port service isn't as green as it claims. Craving more bad news? The University of Vermont's