I spoke to one of his advisers on Thursday who said don't look for anything beyond a sort of tepid 'here's my pal, George,'

No one I know has any real idea why voters are behaving the way they are this year-why the polls have been bouncing around, why Gore has been unable to capitalize on the state of the economy, why silly nonevents like kisses and appearances on Oprah seem to be having a real effect on who is going to be the next president.

The one thing I'm convinced George W. Bush is good at is bipartisanship. It's clearly something he enjoys personally.

Carrying an automatic weapon in a Third World country beyond the easy reach of higher authority? The job description is like a bug light to borderline personalities.

Apart from its dangers, much of Iraq isn't very interesting to look at. The landscape is flat and dun colored. The dirt just beyond the highway is littered with hunks of twisted and mangled metal, some of it the detritus of wars, some of it just unclaimed junk. The countryside looks muddy and broken.

It was a bad one. We're going to try to get through Thursday, that's what we are really pushing for.