So yeah, blah blah, Wesley Clark is jumping into the prez race...there's an ocean of ink being spilled about this today, but Salon has a nice pithy piece that touches on Dean's sudden "vulnerability" as the "de facto frontrunner" (?!) and on the Dems' obsession with "electability." (subscription caveat) Here's a quote: "Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., who has not committed to any of the current candidates, sees it as 'an entirely predictable cycle' in which Democrats assess who's in the race, judge the field too weak, and wonder who might make a late entrance or be drafted to bolster the field. With Clark's entrance, Weiner says, 'This is the field, nobody else is getting in, and we'll all rally around the nominee. And he'll be at 40 percent going into convention, he'll get a bump to 46 and then climb through the fall and the election will be [won by] two or three points.'" Now that's some pragmatism...I think I'll subscribe to that long view, and wait for a Dean/Clark ticket to shape up.

Also of note, the Zogby poll showing Bush and good old Al Gore in a dead heat...how 2000. Here's Maureen Dowd 's take: "One terrorist attack, two wars, three tax cuts, four months of guerrilla mayhem in Iraq, five silly colors on a terror alert chart, nine nattering Democratic candidates, 10 Iraqi cops killed by Americans, $87 billion in Pentagon illusions, a gazillion boastful Osama tapes, zero Saddam and zilch W.M.D. have left America split evenly between the president and former vice president."