The Main Blog

Sidney Sheldon, who died not long ago at age 89, wrote more than two dozen thrillers, which sold more than 300 million copies worldwide. At last count the books had been translated into 51 languages.

When Sheldon set out to grab you, you were grabbed. For instance, here’s the first sentence of his 1985 potboiler, “If Tomorrow Comes”:

“She undressed slowly, dreamily, and when she was naked, she selected a bright red negligee to wear so that the blood would not show.”

Damn. With a first sentence like that, is there any chance you’re not going read sentence No. 2?

Congratulations to Evan O’Dorney – the 13-year-old California boy made winning the Bee look easy. Of all the winners in recent years, I’ve never seen one quite as cool as Evan. Now he gets his 15 minutes of fame, which by the looks of him he’ll have fun with. Interesting minor side point: he always eats fish before competing. That fact makes my appreciation of fresh tuna only greater.

(And what about those Canadians? This was the second year in a row that an American won after a final duel with a Canadian. The North Country apparently creates some fierce, no-holds-barred orthographers.)

I’m at the National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C. — Reporters on deadline: e-mail me at info@maguireonline.com for an interview. I’m happy to speak with you.

And for other, non-reporter humans: Watch the dramatic, nail-biting final rounds on ABC on Thursday, May 31 at 8 PM.

Keep your eye on Samir Patel, a 13-year-old whiz kid from Texas. It’s his fifth Bee (and last) and he’s got a superb chance at taking home the trophy.

I skipped The Departed when it played in theaters. It looked like a routine, hyper-violent police procedural. But I added it to my Netflix cue when it won Best Picture.

It starts slow, and does indeed appear to just a bones-breaking-guns-shooting tough guy flick. For the first twenty minutes, I wondered: this won Best Picture? But then the narrative strands start to come together, and the tension begins building. And with a cast of bright lights, most of the scenes are intense curios, full of deep, intimate portrayals that never approach the obvious.

Among films that have won Best Picture, it still lacks some larger value, like the way last year’s winner, Crash, dealt with race relations. Departed is essentially just entertainment, but engaging entertainment. (Although by the end, the body count gets pretty absurd…)

Amid all the coverage of Scooter Libby’s conviction for obstructing a leak investigation, a statement by one of the jurors, Denis Collins, says it all:

“What are we doing with this guy here? Where’s Rove? Where are these other guys?’” Collins said. “I’m not saying we didn’t think Mr. Libby was guilty of the things we found him guilty of. It seemed like he was, as [Libby defense lawyer] Mr. Wells put it, he was the fall guy.”

To be sure, Libby took the fall but the real dirty work (or the dirtiest of the dirty work) was committed by higher ups. Libby’s machinations were part of the selling of a war that a recent Gallup poll shows that most Americans realize was a terrible mistake. It’s that war that’s the real crime, and responsibility for it lies with Bush and his inner circle.

Sometimes it’s tempting to think the Bush presidency is a bad dream, but no, the darkness is real. That he is our president is a very, very, very bad thing.

I guarantee you that one hundred years from now, after most of the current pop music dross is forgotten like so many stale party pastries, people will still be groovin’ to Pinetop Smith. Pinetop (1904-1929) died young but played an ultimate boogie-woogie piano. His hands on the keys were like some great life-affirming, sweaty, breathless roadhouse beatitude.

Born and raised in Alabama, he traveled the vaudeville circuit and played for blues diva Ma Rainey. In the 1920s he held forth in the saloons of Chicago (his untimely death resulted from a stray bullet in a barroom argument). He tended to shout out good-natured instructions over his riffs – “shake that thing” – inviting us all to the house party.

Here’s Pinetop from 1928:

Download Pinetop Smith’s Boogie-Woogie

The Oscar’s broadcast was a fun burst of fantasy-celebrity. A roomful of beautiful, well-dressed people, intelligent, creative and in many cases wealthy. It’s like they’re a tribe apart. It’s good to know that humans are capable of that.

It’s good to see, too, that we Americans still know how to create culture worth exporting. Of the three things we’re known for, it seems like it’s the only one left. As a military superpower we’re in the middle of being reminded of our limitations. As the global economic leader, the dollar is sagging and the trade gap is ballooning as our jobs flow overseas. But the world still gets excited by that fantastical elixir called American culture. It’s magic.

Ellen Degeneres was great as a presenter (I just finished reading her book And The Funny Thing Is…, which is funny and very well written). Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth inarguably deserved its Oscar – I saw it twice and it made me just as verklempt the second time; to think, an American leader who’s smart, visionary and compassionate. Now that’s magic.

The news about the reading ability of high school students is alarming. According to results from an exam called the National Assessment of Educational Progress – a test thought as as “the nation’s report card” – reading levels have fallen since 1992. (The results of the test, broken down by demographic group, are here and are quite interesting.)

The percentage of 12th graders lacking even rudimentary reading skills (like, for example, being able to decipher information about train fares from a brochure) jumped to 27 percent in 2005 from 20 percent in 1992. In other words, a full quarter of high school students are functionally illiterate.

In the same time period, the percentage of students who are proficient in reading fell by five percent.

It’s a shame that changing this situation, that increasing funding and boosting education levels, isn’t a higher priority. To think that all those hundreds of billions we’ve spent in Iraq could have been spent right here, on our very own kids. There are now plans to increase the size of the military. We don’t need that as badly as we need to bolster the strength of our educational system.

Cicero, a Roman philosopher who would have recently celebrated his 2,113th birthday, is known for codifying the rules of rhetoric, among other things. As he defined it, rhetoric is the art of the persuasive argument. It’s the many techniques, some quite rational, some quite underhanded, that politicians, salesmen, husbands and wives, and all human beings use as they make their case.

For example, the ad hominem attack, which attacks an opponent personally as opposed to attacking their argument. It’s an effective technique if your argument is weak; it helps distract the audience. Cicero informs us, too, that pathos (emotion) beats logos (logic) – at least for most people.

What’s amazing about his depiction of the rules of rhetoric is how accurately they describe the noise in our own pubic forum. If you were to sit Cicero down in front of a cable news shout-fest, he’d nod knowingly. He’d note no surprise that the rules of persuasion haven’t changed. He essentially took his precepts from the ancient Greeks, and they hadn’t changed in the interim.

He wrote this when he was twenty-one, in about 80 B.C.:

“From the character of our adversaries, if we are able to bring them either into hatred, or into unpopularity, or into contempt. They will be brought into hatred, if any action of theirs can be adduced which has been lascivious, or arrogant, or cruel, or malignant. They will be made unpopular…”

From the same text:

“We shall render our hearers willing to receive information, if we explain the sum total of the cause with plainness and brevity, that is to say, the point on which the dispute hinges. For when you wish to make a hearer inclined to receive information you must also render him attentive. For he is above all men willing to receive information who is prepared to listen with the greatest attention.”

A popular saying of Cicero’s:

“We should be as careful of our words as of our actions.”

Is there any modern political candidate who doesn’t fret about Cicero’s words in every waking moment?

Among the 1.5 gazillion pieces of spam I receive each day was this missive:

I don’t know anyone named Tommie T. Hunter (but I’d like to – the name is redolent of cheeky good times and devil-may-care insouciance). But even if I did, I’d have to ask, be modern?

How, in these uncertain times? In the age we live in, with so many cultural cross-currents howling this way and that, what does it mean to be “modern”? And at this late date, aren’t we all a little better off being just a tad old-fashioned?

As I was pondering these imponderables, I received this equally enigmatic note from one Hilda V. Vasquez:

(Note that Hilda and Tommie look to be the product of a single spambot, probably operated by a millionaire spammer who works from a trailer home in Florida. If I actually opened either spam, my machine would likely implode in about 27 seconds.)

Yes, Hilda, “and strange.” I think you’ve got something there. “And strange…” I’m going to have to give that some thought…

Why are blueberries so horrendously expensive? A box of about 350 blueberries fetches a full five bucks. Amazingly, that’s more than a penny for a single blueberry. Pop a mere three tiny berries in your mouth and you’ve just spent a nickel. It’s not right. The blueberry cartel must have a persuasive lobbying group.

Isn’t there some oppressed Third World country we could take over that would allow us to get cheaper blueberries? Some desperate place, one of those many countries that would greet us like liberators (like they always do – they’re always so cheered by the sight of American troops taking over; and wouldn’t you be, too?) and just start workin’ the blueberry patches with a passion.

On the NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams could smile wryly as he introduced a puff piece about how the native people love us so much that some old man – who’s probably been carving statues of American presidents out of coconuts for five decades – has made an entire house out of blueberries.

Damn, I’m going to write the president a letter about this. We need to get started–

Actually, on second thought, better not. Our current man in the White House is an excitable fellow, fond of rushing pell mell into nonsensical foreign adventures, and I wouldn’t want to give him any ideas. We’ll have to pony up for blueberries after all.

As the great American troubadour, Woody Guthrie (1912-1967) wrote and sang songs of social justice and political protest. His most famous song, “This Land is Your Land,” includes a subversive verse that says, in essence, the land doesn’t belong to the banks (who wanted to foreclose on it during the Depression) this land belongs to farmers and homeowners.

His tune “Do-Re-Mi” is a wry observation about survival during the Dust Bowl, as thousands tried to flee to California. If you don’t have the money (the “do-re-mi”), the song says, than you’ll be stuck in Texas. Here’s Woody singing:

I’m very happy that the Congress voted, 246 to 182, to denounce Bush’s troop escalation in Iraq. While on one hand the vote is troubling in that it’s merely symbolic when something very real needs to be done, it’s heartening to see an institutional rebuke of a commander in chief whose bungling has passed beyond the tragic into the obscene.

Looking a couple years ahead, the vote is a train wreck for Republicans. Because the vote divided along partisan lines, with only 17 Republicans abandoning the president, it positions the Republican party squarely in the pro-war camp. Yet the 2006 mid terms made voters’ feelings abundantly clear. We do not want this war. (You know there’s rage when incumbent Republicans are defeated in Missouri and Montana).

And still this week most of the Congressional Republicans refused to vote to oppose a troop surge. It’s like their hearing aids are turned off.

But the people won’t stand for it. There are a lot of tears in small towns and big cities across America, all those lost young men and women. In 2008, after two more years of this, anything labeled Republican will be in deep trouble.

Remarkably, John Boehner, the Republican minority leader, stood up after the vote and proclaimed, “Republicans may have lost the vote on this nonbinding resolution. But we won the debate.”

Yeah, tell yourself that. But it sounds like the captain of the Titanic saying “The ship might be at the bottom of the ocean, but we stuck to our course.”

The word canoodle isn’t used nearly as much as it once was. Decades ago, gossip columnists often confided that some leggy starlet was seen “canoodling in the corner” with some actor-stud. Britney Spears, having dumped the K-Fedster, is now sometimes reported to be canoodling in nightclubs. However, a search for the word on the Hollywood Reporter site yields nada, surely a sign of some sort of decline in something.

(Minor tangent: I have always loved the publication name “Hollywood Reporter.” First, it’s a true oxymoron – if you’re a reporter, you’ve got no business in Hollywood, where everything is stage-managed and a press release is in-depth journalism. Second, the phrase “Hollywood reporter” conjures images of an eager cub stringer in a seersucker suit and second-hand derby, notepad in hand, eagerly quizzing a bored ingenue as she polishes her nails.)

But back to canoodle. The Random House dictionary defines it as “caress, fondle, or pet amorously.” (“Pet amorously”? I’m reminded of 1960s-era sorority meet and greets.) The American Heritage Dictionary takes canoodling just a tad more seriously – which is appropriate, given the word’s potential – defining it as “to engage in caressing, petting, or lovemaking.” Oh goodness.

At any rate, I wish canoodle was used more frequently. It’s the kind of word that can be tossed off casually and in any number of occasions, so there’s no good reason for its paucity of employment. Change, of course, always starts with oneself, so I guess it’s up to me. From now on, more canoodling!

There’s ice and snow and flurries out there. It’s chilly and wintry. The wind is cutting. But don’t you love it? I saw kids sledding in the early evening, and an old codger who was shoveling snow stopped and smiled. Very Norman Rockwell. It seems like there’s more oxygen in the air, or more energy at any rate.

I’m breathing it in. Oh yeah. GIve me that sweet, fresh air…

The written word isn’t dead – at least not yet. In its last few remaining years it’s making a fevered stand on the Internet, there to die a slow and agonized death, suffocating in a sea of YouTube videos of dogs riding skateboards, and sprawling multi-player videogames in which Mongor battles the Purple Mega-Death. Bam! Splat! Pow!

Dude, that is 2 kewl 4 me. Thnx!!!!

Before the written word withers from even its online perch, however, there are a few spots worth visiting. Call them “must reads.” Specifically, Micheal Kinsley for a dose of enlightened and often funny political commentary; Peggy Noonan when you need a shot of conservative cant (and who doesn’t every once in a while?); James Walcott, who offers up a prose style on steroids and a bilious wit; and Frank Rich, who has done some inspired work in his skewering of the Bush madness.

Michael Wolff is fun for some culture dish, and Hendrik Hertzberg is necessary because hardly anyone handles a sentence better.

And of course Andy Borowitz, because sometimes satire is the best weapon. Oh, and the politically insightful Nora Ephron, whose writerly voice is pure charm.

I’d list some more, but there’s a video I want to watch on YouTube. A bunch of guys put an iPod in a blender. It is SO WICKED.

I’ve been counting my calories, mainly because on certain days I eat enough to feed a small South American country. And my body is of the opinion that that’s too many.

Actually, no, it’s not my body that’s unhappy. My body wants to keep devouring and devouring – or at least the message it gives me. It’s my mind that realizes that my intake is closer to the elephantine side of the spectrum. Hence my effort to keep track and – here’s the hard part – limit the the amount I mindlessly wolf down.

The problem is that I’m experiencing moments that resemble hunger. Not real hunger, of course. But what my pampered lil’ self thinks of as hunger. Call it “hunger lite.” Still, to me it seems like hunger.

And my pseudo-hunger makes me think about food. Oh chocolate chip cookies, how do I love thee? (Pretty deeply, actually.) I heard someone mention a lunch date the other day and I thought, “lunch?” That sounds good. Is it time for lunch?

And I saw some amazing things. Going out in public is always interesting.

At the grocery store, I saw a check-out clerk wearing a button that said WOW. I looked closer and it said “Women opposing War.”

Walking down the street, I saw a car with this bumper sticker: “I’m Already Against the Next War.”

One sees remarkable things when one leaves the house…

In 1953, Lawrence Ferlinghetti opened the storied City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, which is still thriving today. The store was a gathering place for Beat writers and poets, including an early reading by Allen Ginsberg of his incantory poem Howl (the poem is now studied by cadets at West Point.)

Ferlinghetti’s A Coney Island of the Mind, published in 1958 at the apex of the Beat era, is one of the bestselling volumes of poetry by an American poet. He continues to live in San Francisco, where he was named the city’s Poet Laureate in 1998.

Here’s the last stanza of Ferlinghetti’s “I’m Waiting,” from Coney Island:

I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green fields to come again
youth’s dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Greecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder

You know it’s cold and blustery out there. February, brrrr. About 72 feet of snow in upstate New York. Gimme some warmth, huh?

The quick fix: Antonio Carlo Jobim, the Brazilian songwriter, offers up a dry martini heat-shiver on a chill winter day. The original recording from the ’60s (benefitting from the smoky “tube microphone” low-fi technology) captures Jobim’s group in all its soul-warming physicality. Nothing forced, just the sexiest groove this side of Rio.

Here’s “Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars),” spotlighting the mellow saxophone of Stan Getz. Jobim and Getz were an inspired pairing:

Download Jobim’s “Quiet Nights” from iTunes

We will surely get far, far too much media coverage of Anna Nicole Smith’s death. I hesitate to add even a droplet to the gushing torrent, but there is (at least) one thing that bears mentioning.

What’s interesting is how she captured our attention, how she stepped into the glaring famous-sphere without any discernible skills. She was apparently famous for being famous. But in truth, she earned it.

She managed to marry that billionaire old coot, he was like 150 years old, when she twenty-something. I can only chuckle at how effectively she made that naked money grab. A brilliant feat.

It’s touching when you realize her real name was Vickie Lynn Hogan, and she was born to a single mother in Mexia, Texas. At 16 she married Billy Smith, a fry cook, who, according to her obit, “specialized in chicken.” Oh God, that’s mythic. Pulling herself up from a poultry specialist to a $474 million inheritance award in federal court.

It’s really the American way. Set your sights on an Olympian goal, maneuver cunningly, litigate aggressively, make no apologies, and elbow out the competition for what’s yours. No wonder we liked her. To Ms. Smith I say, you lived life largely, and properly. Good for you.

I’m intrigued by the news of the astronaut who went stark raving crazy over a love problem. Capt. Lisa Marie Nowak, 43, a NASA astronaut, drove 950 miles – dressed in an adult diaper so she wouldn’t have to stop for a bathroom break – and “attacked a rival for another astronaut’s affection,” according to reports.

In other words, she thought someone was stealing her love object, and the thought made her lose her mind. I feel quite sorry for her. The list of objects she brought with her says it all. She had a four-inch knife (ouch!), a BB gun (who flies into a rage and picks up a BB gun?) and – here’s where it gets me – a love letter. She drove 950 miles carting a love letter.

What’s so perfectly and universally tragic about the event is all that distance she traveled out into deep dark space. It turns out that we can fly 10,000 miles away, but we still carry these things called hearts. And they are problematic organs, given to insane fits of need and jealousy and lust and pride and about 1.5 million other maladies.

Maybe when we get done building the next space station, we can invent a cure for the human heart…

Sidney Sheldon, who died last week at the age of 89, wrote more than two dozen thrillers, which sold more than 300 million copies worldwide. At last count the books had been translated into 51 languages.

When Sheldon set out to grab you, you were grabbed. For instance, here’s the first sentence of his 1985 potboiler, “If Tomorrow Comes”:

“She undressed slowly, dreamily, and when she was naked, she selected a bright red negligee to wear so that the blood would not show.”

Damn. With a first sentence like that, is there any chance you’re not going read sentence No. 2?

I got a kick out of Prince’s Super Bowl half-time show: big and bombastic, fireworks and klieg lights and tens of thousands of people all hooting along. The hyper-bloated spectacle of the thing couldn’t be argued with.

It seemed to sum us up so well, we trippy weirdoes called Americans. We like everything big – no, bigger – no, biggest. Wait – can we super-size that? We want a zillion synchronized lights and a digitally enhanced fireworks show, with a 300-person brass band marching in unison. Then we download the whole shebang to our iPod and listen as we speed our Hummer to the mall to buy something bright and shiny – and big, like a 137-inch high-def TV.

Because the same way we like it big (no, huge!), we always need something more. Somewhere in our house, some tiny corner is not absolutely jammed-packed full of stuff – glorious, glorious, stuff! – and that bothers us. It makes us anxious.

(Isn’t there something that blinks and beeps we could get to fill that corner? Yes, but you’ll have to buy the regular size, because the mega-size is all sold out!)

We’re ringing up the most gigantic debt any people has ever seen anywhere, because we need more, we definitely need way, way, way, more – we don’t have enough! – but it’s still not enough – we need more! (Maybe there’s something with pink polka dots we could get for that corner…)

But here’s the strange part, to get back to the artist formerly known as a popular singer. Prince’s show really was good. He’s enormously talented. And that’s part of us, too. The drive to always be bigger, better, grander, produces outsized achievements that future cultures will look back on admiringly. Medicine, the arts, business, technology. Somewhere, there’s a tribe in outer Borneo that lives in perfect harmony, who’s satisfied with what they have, living the same way for 800 years – but what the hell have they ever achieved? (Probably something – but we’re Americans so we don’t care.)

Abraham Lincoln said that a person with big virtues necessarily has big vices. I don’t know if that’s true, but if so, it’s definitely us. Soaring virtues and strange, overblown vices. I just hope we don’t drown underneath all our crap…

Helen Mirren is nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress for the title role in The Queen, and I walked out of the theater feeling sure she’ll sweep the category. I also walked out being surprised how satisfying this movie is.

I wasn’t looking forward to a film about the inner workings of the British monarchy – it sounded like a stuffy drawing-room melodrama. But it’s not. Going inside the royal family in the days following the death of Princess Diana in 1997, the story pits the frosty traditionalism of Queen Elizabeth against the charismatic media savvy of a young Tony Blair. Running an unpadded 97 minutes, the film never drags.

It’s interesting, and even funny, to watch Blair attempt to nudge Elizabeth toward acknowledging and publicly mourning the death of Diana, whose heavy-breathing People magazine stardom (among other things) made her very much persona non grata among the airless royal family.

It’s poignant, too, when Elizabeth realizes the world is shifting under her feet. The Queen explores what happens when we’re faced with the need to change those things we hold most sacred. Mirren’s ability to take us along on that journey makes the movie a winner.

I noticed the average age in the movie theater was about 60, so I’m guessing the film will reach a wider audience after Mirren accepts her Oscar in late February.

Tomorrow, Feb. 4, is the big day, the game we’ve been waiting for all year long. No, not the one with the big strong men in tight pants who hug each other when they get excited. I mean…the Puppy Bowl!

Woof woof!

Taking the field on Sunday will be Bess (that’s her picture), Bomber, Gypsy, Izzie, and the very, very tough Larry. Put on by the Animal Planet, the Puppy Bowl takes place in a mock football stadium that’s about 50 feet wide. The puppies run out on the field amid great cheering, then do pretty much what puppies always do – run around, gnaw on chew toys, and relieve themselves. (The refs call an “illegal motion” penalty when a leg is lifted.)

Although it’s broadcast opposite the real Super Bowl, its ratings are frisky. Last year, 690,000 canine lovers tuned in, or about the same number as watched MSNBC’s coverage of the State of the Union. During half time, a bunch of kitties take the field and play with a scratching post for 30 minutes. You gotta love it.

I recently saw this flick for the second time, the first being when it was an indie theater release in 1990. It’s a great production, with Mel Gibson as the agonized young prince and Glenn Close as the ambiguous queen. Gibson is superb. He makes the role his own. He delivers his lines in a natural conversation style instead of high oratory, giving his performance intimacy and authenticity.

As good as the production is, though, there’s no question about it: it’s much more challenging to watch Shakespeare than a contemporary script. You have to pay attention to the language and be willing to decode the metaphors. It requires active mental engagement instead of simply siting back and enjoying.

But this film more than repays the effort. Like when Gibson digs down and expertly squeezes this one for every last drop:

“What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties! In form and moving, how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension, how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”

(The phrase “quintessence of dust,” coming after that hyperbolic build-up, is gorgeous-great. No wonder this stuff has lasted hundreds of years.)

Here’s a scene with Gibson and Helen Bonham Carter:

These sentences are out of context and free-floating, yet they all share a common subject, a topic that has inspired Broadway bards for generations: female gams. The legs of a lady. The sweet distance from waist to toe. The limb that is poetic and heroic.

Okay, batter up:

1) Her legs were somewhere between nine and twelve miles long.

2) Her thighs were implacable, ineluctable, inexplicable, yet whenever they spoke, they spoke softly.

3) With a stride like that, it was if she was followed at every turn by a three-man Afro-Cuban jazz band – coronet, piccolo, finger-cymbals – who beat out a voodoo rhythm, ephemeral but timeless, slithery but strident, and always, always, filled with the sublime religiosity of a cool summer evening.

(That last one might have lost control, but that’s a common occurrence in the literature of the gam…)

These eyebrow-raising statistics about how much we spend on our cars were released by the Census Bureau. They show the average yearly expenditure, based on annual income. The totals include purchase, finance charges, insurance, and all the other bags of cash we sprinkle over those four-wheeled deities, our automobiles:

Annual Income: / 2005 spending:

Less than $19,179: $2,742

$19,179 to $35,999: $5,330

$36,000 to $57,659: $7,437

$57,660 to $91,704: $10,504

More than $91,704: $15,691

All households: $8,344

The shocker is that five grand spent by people in the 19-35k income range. Given that you can buy a 2-year-old Toyota with low miles for 12-15k, and it runs for 10 years, there are ways to get by on less.

As for the folks in the 91k+ income bracket who spend more than 15 large a year…damn. In excess of $1,000 a month for four wheels and a cup holder. I hope they’re enjoying the cool luxury of their mobile money pit…

I saw Hillary Clinton on C-SPAN speak in an Iowa town hall meeting. It was her first day in the state, with polls saying she has at least a small hill to climb there.

Wow, the new Hillary has emerged. She wasn’t speechifying – which she’s not great at – she was talking with the crowd. I’ve never seen her so at ease and natural. As hard as it is to believe, she’s actually – I know this can’t be right, but I saw it with my own eyes – a better speaker than Bill.

The thing about Bill was, he was the definition of charisma, but you always knew he was a virtuoso used car dealer, feelin’ our pain and cutting welfare benefits at the same time.

But Hillary, out on the stump, is real. She speaks extemporaneously and conversationally about any topic. And she speaks in human terms about what people really care about. You could feel the connection.

It was great seeing the capacity audience in the big hall, with all kinds of people stepping forward to ask questions. It’s tempting to think the whole thing was scripted, that only “approved” people and questions got the microphone, but it didn’t look that way. The people seemed authentic, and the crowd was too large and mixed to be fully controlled.

I’m telling you, the smart money hasn’t realized it yet, but this woman is going to steamroll straight to the White House. And not a moment too soon.