The Dish

My new column in the Sunday Times is up. Money quote:

To be sure, Oprah went out of her way not to diss Clinton, whose support among women and African-Americans has kept Obama in a firm, water-treading second place in the polls, if not in fundraising.

“I think I’ve said this before and it’s true: because I am for Barack does not mean I am against Hillary or anybody else,” Oprah explained. “So the fact that I would endorse Barack Obama, I have not one negative thing to say about Hillary Clinton.”

That’s the classic Oprah touch: never divisive, always positive, but somehow not completely vapid. It’s not easy to pull that off and to retain an appearance of authenticity, but that’s why her talk show remains a phenomenon in the popular culture.

She has an ally among black women for the Obama candidacy. The other woman is not well known yet, but she soon will be. In some ways, she is for Obama in retail politics what Oprah is for him on the national stage. Her name is Michelle Obama, and she is the Illinois senator’s wife.

The rest here.

(Photo: Kevin Dietsch-Pool/Getty.)

"We ain’t found shit." Spaceballs.

Chuck Todd on the Big Factor in the 2008 election. Money quote:

There are a couple of parallel elections that we could be in the midst of right now and depending on the country’s specific mood will determine the outcome. Clearly the mood of the country is down, but is it anger or depression? Is it exhaustion or fear? If it’s like ’68, where the country was angry but a bit fearful of drastic change, Thompson and Clinton could succeed; both are very similar to Humphrey and Nixon in that they are selling cautious change.  If the mood is exhausted and depressed, like ’80, Romney and Obama could prosper.  Then again, if the mood is angry with an electorate demanding of change no matter the unintended consequences, like 92, then perhaps Edwards, Giuliani or even a Bloomberg will fit the bill. In fact, take note that in the three elections cited above (’68, ’80 and ’92), all of them saw significant third party candidacies influence the outcome of the election (Wallace, Anderson and Perot).

New York, New York, dusk.

Discuss. Ron Bailey writes about Stephen Pinker’s unmentionable questions. Among them:

Are suicide terrorists well-educated, mentally healthy and morally driven?

Would the incidence of rape go down if prostitution were legalized?

Do African-American men have higher levels of testosterone, on average, than white men?

Is morality just a product of the evolution of our brains, with no inherent reality?

Would society be better off if heroin and cocaine were legalized?

Is homosexuality the symptom of an infectious disease?

I find all those questions fascinating and well worth airing. Pinker is not so sure.

More Japanese "crop-art" here.

Why am I not surprised?

Fifteen of ’em. Enjoy.

A history of spin.

A Tibetan woman feeds her baby in her tent during the Horse Racing Festival on July 20, 2007 in Chengduo County of Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, northwest China. The Horse Racing Festival of Tibetan nomads in Yushu Prefecture falls in late July and early August on the Tibetan calendar. During the festival, various of equestrian skills will be performed along with singing, dancing and costume shows. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)