OPINION

Perhaps Democratic gubernatorial candidate Farouk Shami just wanted to steal the spotlight back from Debra Medina. If so, the hair care magnate who wants to be governor chose one heck of a way to get attention, outdoing Medina on the 9/11 front and throwing in some offensive comments about race for good measure.

Earlier today, Shami taped an interview that will air Sunday on WFAA's Inside Texas Politics. The first-time candidate talked about why he hires mostly Hispanics and blacks to work in his factories.

"I find 80 percent of my employees at the factory are Hispanics," Shami said. "I don't find, you know, many white people really willing to work, you know, unfortunately."

He added that white workers want to be supervisors and expect to be paid more. Then, when a second interviewer asked Shami about Medina's comments regarding 9/11 conspiracy theories, he, too, declined to disavow suggestions that the U.S. government might have been involved in the attacks.

"Would we ever find the truth about 9/11? That's a very dangerous subject to get into," Shami said. "You know so it's hard to make judgment. I'm not saying yes or no, because I don't know the truth."

Shami's campaign has subsequently sent a statement of clarification, emphasizing that he does not know whether 9/11 was an inside job. Glad we cleared that up.

While Shami's comments were perhaps more outrageous than Medina's, they might generate fewer headlines. Medina was gaining momentum in the GOP race, while Shami has not been viewed as much more than an afterthought on the Democratic side. He's proved that spending millions of dollars won't buy you credibility.

Here's how to go from being something of a political phenom back to a fringe candidate in one easy step: Suggest that perhaps the U.S. government had something to do with 9/11.

Debra Medina has been a candidate on the rise, skyrocketing from a distant third place to right in the thick of things in the GOP gubernatorial primary. But her ascenscion could screech to a halt after voters listen to her exchange with Glenn Beck.

Beck asked Medina today about rumors that she's a "9/11 truther," prompting a hearty laugh from Medina and a claim that she's never heard that said. Beck persists, asking Medina if she thinks that the U.S. government was involved in the attacks on the Sept. 11, 2001.

Medina says:
"I think some very good questions have been raised in that regard. There are some very good arguments, and I think the American people have not seen all of the evidence there, so I have not taken a position on that."

The correct answer here would be "No."

Beck correctly notes, "I think the American people might take that as a yes."

Medina has now backtracked, issuing a statement blaming Muslim terrorists for the attacks. But the candidate's own words in the Beck interview speak volumes. The question caught her off guard, but Medina clearly has significant doubts about 9/11.

Perhaps Medina's supporters share these views. But to me, this sounds like an effective way to put your campaign on the fast track back to the fringe.

Last week, we lauded the city's efforts to crack down on booting companies gone bad in Deep Ellum. A new ordinance requiring receipts in parking lots that use booting seemed like a good step to protect patrons who have long complained about paying to park in unattended lots, only to return to find a boot on their car.

But Nancy Visser reports that the clock struck midnight on Jan. 1, and little happened. Pay lots still sit unattended without receipt machines. And having a law hasn't done much to change that.

The president of the Deep Ellum Foundation raises the possibility that lots that were booting your car now might tow it instead. That's still allowed, even in unattended, no-receipt parking lots. So, perhaps hopes that a retooled parking ordinance would help bring folks back to Deep Ellum were premature. The city should take another crack at the ordinance and require lots that boot or tow to issue receipts. Otherwise, unscrupulous parking enforcement companies can continue to make Deep Ellum an awfully expensive place to visit.

When George W. Bush spoke in October at a mega-sales seminar, I was mildly perplexed. Sure, he was paid handsomely to tell a few stories and fire up the friendly crowd. But it seemed an odd choice for what was probably the former president's most public appearance since he left office.

If one Get Motivated! apperance left me perplexed, the second has left me less than impressed. Bush spoke in San Antonio yesterday at the same professional pep rally. There, he regaled the crowd with tales of picking up dog poop in post-presidential life. I'm sure that it's tough to turn down a six-figure sum for cracking some jokes and offering a few life lessons. But Bush has plenty of money-making opportunities, and he has plenty of time to talk about the issues that are important to him -- and, eventually, about pooper scoopers if he so chooses.

Of course, a couple speeches at a motivational seminar won't define the former president. But after laying low for several months, this doesn't seem like most strategic re-entry into the public eye. Joining a lineup of speakers that includes Zig Ziglar and Terry Bradshaw just doesn't convey post-presidential gravitas.

Word is just now leaking out that Tom Schieffer is about to bow out of the race for governor. From the start, Schieffer, a George W. Bush buddy, business partner and ambassador, has had a tough time convincing Democrats that he really is one of them.

Even though Schieffer failed to build much momentum, his departure leaves a big void in the race and leaves the Texas Democratic party really scrambling for a known quantity and a true blue Dem. Amazingly, Schiefffer was one of three candidates in this contest who weren't exactly party loyalists. Kinky Friedman ran as an independent last time around and had plenty of disparaging remarks for his now-adopted party. And hair care magnate Farouk Shami has no political experience and was writing checks to Republican candidates as recently as several months ago. The allegiance of Felix Alvarado and Hank Gilbert isn't in question, but a lack of name recognition is working against them.

Speculation is intensifying that Houston Mayor Bill White might opt out of the so-far-non-existent Senate race and bring his campaign cash to the governor's race. With less than 100 days until the primary, that's probably the Democrats' best hope. But some voters must be starting to wonder: Doesn't any Democrat want to be governor?

Speculation has been swirling for some time now that Tom Leppert was poised to make the leap from Dallas mayor to U.S. Senate candidate -- when and if Kay Bailey Hutchison resigns her seat. While the mayor has stayed mum, his associates have become increasingly convinced that an announcement is near. Interestingly, Leppert's calendar this week only bolsters that belief.

While the mayor has appeared before a wide range of groups across the political spectrum, the vast majority of his speaking engagements are civic gigs of the ribbon-cutting, Chamber of Commerce, rah rah Dallas variety. But the current calendar leans a bit right for a non-partisan mayor. Today, Leppert was scheduled to speak at a Council for Life luncheon. And Saturday evening, the mayor will be addressing the Log Cabin Republicans.

Perhaps this is merely coincidence. Perhaps next week he'll be speaking to Dallas County Democrats and the ACLU. But this week's schedule has a bit of a red tinge to it.

Nearly lost in the drama of the Don Hill-City Hall corruption trial was the fact that Rep. Terri Hodge is still awaiting her day in court. It was believed that the Democratic legislator would go on trial later this year -- well in advance of the March primary.

But today, Judge Barbara Lynn set Hodge's trial for March 8. As luck would have it, that's six days after Democratic voters go to the polls.

So, now Hodge can run her District 100 primary campaign without the hassle of a felony trial getting in the way. (Of course, if she's convicted, she can't retain her seat.) She's accused of taking a free apartment and carpet from developers Brian and Cheryl Potashnik. While one can never assume the outcome of a trial, Hodge appears to have a steep hill to climb in court. The Potashniks have pleaded guilty, and most of the other people tied into this web of conspiracy and bribes have been convicted. So, prosecutors should have plenty of witnesses to call.

But for now, Hodge can seek the Democratic nomination. So far, she's drawn one opponent, Eric Johnson, who came out of the gate with a flurry of fundraising and campaign events. Johnson has focused on raising money and introducing himself to voters -- and not on the question of whether Hodge is a felon. After all, the court was expected to answer that question before March. The question now is how Johnson will campaign against a popular incumbent awaiting trial -- and whether other would-be candidates who thought this might become an open seat will jump into the fray.

After firing several warning shots at state environmental officials, the Environmental Protection Agency is headed to Texas to have a serious talk about how we regulate pollution. Federal officials already have demanded changes to the way the state handles air-pollution permits, and they've made no secret of their displeasure with Texas' let-them-pollute approach to environmental regulation.

Tomorrow, folks from the EPA will sit down with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The commission's executive director, Mark Vickery, suggests that this could all be worked out if EPA officials simply realized how much emissions have been reduced. I appreciate his optimism, but the EPA has taken a hard look at Texas' permitting programs and deemed them inadequate.

Having a new administration at the helm in DC has meant a whole new level of scrutiny for the TCEQ. And as we noted on today's editorial page, having this bright light trained on Texas already is forcing some needed changes.

While state officials likely aren't eagerly anticipating this visit, Texas environmental groups can't wait. They have a long list of suggestions for holding the TCEQ accountable and forcing compliance with federal clean air regulations.

Read more and comment.

Today's news story about City Council member Steve Salazar's push to rename Young Street for Cesar Chavez raises questions about whose input was sought in selecting Young Street. After a fatally flawed Internet poll confused this issue the last time around, a task force was assembled to bring some order and organization to this process.

But Salazar reports that the task force was informal. It consulted with a small group of Hispanic elected officials. And the group did not produce a report or really document its work. That doesn't sound like a very inclusive approach to renaming a city street. Was any effort made to seek public input beyond this small group of political folks?

Reader Bill Betzen e-mailed me with his thoughts about this proposal. He's a seventh-grade teacher and was involved with an earlier incarnation of the Cesar Chavez committee. He reports that in the group's discussions, Young Street never emerged as a candidate for renaming. In fact, Pearl Street was a strong contender for a new name.

He sought out information from the city archivist confirming that the origins of Pearl Street's name are unknown. While I'd suggested the city consider streets named after trees or numbers, a street that shares a name with a random jewel seems like a good candidate as well. Betzen makes the case for renaming Pearl Street on this web site. Worth a read.

Ten months ago, Mayor Tom Leppert commissioned a southern Dallas task force and charged the group with spurring redevelopment efforts in long neglected areas. City Council member Tennell Atkins, who was tapped to lead this effort, kicked things off with a big to-do that drew a standing-room only crowd of more than 250 people to City Hall.

Since then, the task force hasn't made many headlines. Folks were divided up among 10 geographic areas and among three issues teams. These subgroups have been quietly meeting and brainstorming for months now. And tomorrow, we'll get a glimpse of what they've been doing.

At 4 p.m. tomorrow, in the City Council chambers, each of the task force's teams will present an interim report. We've previously questioned whether the unwieldy size of the task force could slow progress, but some team members have reported that they will be presenting some innovative and exciting ideas. So, this is a chance to prove that putting 250 heads together is a better approach than creating a committee that could actually sit at the same table.

Today's question is: What would you like to hear from the southern Dallas task force? After 10 months of meetings, what should the many teams have to show for their efforts?

The traditional media has been fretting and gnashing its teeth about the rise of the citizen journalist for some time now. Untold numbers of folks have taken up journalism as a hobby of sorts. And while most of these people don't have the time or resources to do the type of shoe-leather or investigative reporting that newspapers take pride in, citizen journalists are free labor.

The Huffington Post, in particular, has ruffled plenty of media feathers with its stable of unpaid bloggers who are just glad to have an audience. Now, HuffPo has one-upped itself by convincing wannabe journalists that they should pay for the privilege of working there.

Incredibly, The Huffington Post is auctioning off an internship, and bidding has reached $13,000. Just to be clear: You do the work, and you pay them. In the midst of an avalanche of bad news about traditional media, this may be the most disheartening development I've encountered.

Suddenly, journalism has become a pay-to-play venture? Whoever has the most money gets to report their version of the news?

Early voting shows the warring hotel factions in a dead heat. That's likely bad news for the hotel opponents. While they ran a strong campaign and never lacked for money, I expect the pro-hotel side to win on Election Day logistics. There's a tried and true formula for winning Dallas elections, and the hotel backers know precisely which precincts to flood with volunteers, where to send vans to pick up voters, where they shouldn't waste their time, etc.

Although the opponents have plenty of smart folks on their side, I'm not convinced they have the ground game to pull this off. They needed a double-digit lead coming out of early voting to have much of a chance to pull out a win on Election Day.

The Fort Worth school district has shut down. Dallas has closed one school.

Assorted community events have been canceled. Vice President Joe Biden ratcheted everyone up to red-alert mode with his alarmist don't-take-transit directive. Of course, Rod battoned down the hatches before I even knew what swine flu was. (I'm actually amazed that Rod is in the office.)

I'm starting to wonder: Am I underreacting to a looming pandemic? I've skimmed our swine flu survival guide but haven't done much more to ward off impending doom. What should I be doing? What are you doing?

When the Dallas Independent School District rolled out its new grading policy last year, we complained that the rules made do-overs standard operating procedure. Deadlines were suddenly negotiable, and failed tests could be retaken. Now, Plano is considering a move in the same direction with a proposed policy that seems to ignore the truism that actions have consequences.

The rules under consideration for middle schoolers would cut slack for students who turn in late assignments. And some homework wouldn't be graded. But most disturbing is the proposal to go easy on students caught cheating. Instead of failing a kid who cheated, some other unnamed consequence would be implemented to protect the student's grade.

I can better understand the arguments for making allowances when a student turns in a late assignment (though I'm not sold on that idea, either). But cheating is a serious and deliberate offense -- one that should have significant consequences. Later in life, cheaters will encounter stiff penalties. Why not send that message to kids in middle school?

Proponents of the rule changes say they're focused on what kids are actually learning -- not on playing gotcha when kids trip up. What do you think? Does this proposed policy have merit?

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele has been viewed as suspiciously moderate by some in his party. But the never-dull party head veered wide right recently when he was asked about climate change.

No worries, he said; the earth isn't warming. In fact, it's cooling.

Now, even plenty of conservatives have come around to acknowledging that climate change is real -- and dangerous. Others have staked out a tortured position suggesting that the earth is warming, but man wasn't necessarily to blame.

Steele, though, outdid them all with his global cooling theory and his assertion that Greenland is so named because it's supposed to be green. Here's what he said during a recent gig as guest host of a radio show:

We are cooling. We are not warming. The warming you see out there, the supposed warming, and I am using my finger quotation marks here, is part of the cooling process. Greenland, which is now covered in ice, it was once called Greenland for a reason, right? Iceland, which is now green. Oh I love this. Like we know what this planet is all about. How long have we been here? How long? Not very long.

One of the most interesting stories in the weekend newspapers was the tale of Fred Hill's instantaneous transformation from lawmaker to lobbyist. After "retiring," the Richardson Republican wasted little time coming out of retirement and returning to Austin as a well paid lobbyist. An assortment of suburbs, as well as DART and a few other organizations, are paying Hill more than half a million to represent their interests at the Capitol.

Granted, Hill, who did good work in office, is lobbying for plenty of causes that this newspaper supports. And he's not working for the private sector. But the revolving door that allows lawmakers to immediately hire themselves out to lobby their former colleagues raises all sorts of ethical questions. We've called for a two-year timeout before legislators could reinvent themselves as hired guns. So far, lawmakers don't seem inclined to impose such restrictions on themselves.

What do you think?

Now that the Texans have left the building, it's apparently big news that someone in the White House wears cowboy boots. Budget director Peter Orszag dares to wear boots with his suits, columnist Kathleen Parker wants us to know.

So startling was Orszag's foot attire that Parker felt compelled to ask: Are you from Texas?

Alas, no.

I guess that some Texas in his blood would have explained this curious cowboy footwear, but absent that, Parker determines that he must be a rebel, all decked out in the equivalent of "the government man's tattoo." Who knew that boots were such a bold choice? Or perhaps folks in the Beltway just need to get out more.

The newest political parlor game could be called: What will Obama overturn today? Nearly every day, it seems, President Obama reverses a Bush administration policy. Today's do-over calls for undoing changes that former President Bush made to the Endangered Species Act.

I don't disagree with today's maneuver. And I realize that past presidents also have undone some of the handiwork of their predecessors. But the volume and the rate of Obama's reversals is dizzying.

So far, he's tackled:
presidential records
military coffins
foreign aid to family planning organizations
health care workers and abortion
project labor agreements
auto emissions
drilling rules
endangered species
and more

At this rate, not much will be left of the Bush legacy.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers right now is delivering a punch to the gut at Dallas City Hall. The corps has rated our Trinity River levees unacceptable. They don't meet the corps' post-Katrina standards for flood protection.

What, precisely, this will mean for the river project will be sorted out during the coming days and weeks. But this does not seem to bode well for the long-suffering, wildly overbudget toll road that was to be built between the levees.

In an apparent effort to prove that cable news has entirely too much airtime to fill, Fox News broadcast a super-exclusive interview with Bristol Palin, the political season's poster child for teen pregnancy. While I understood some level of limited interest in Bristol during the heat of the campaign, I have no idea why she's newsworthy now.

The interview succeeded only in raising these questions: Why on earth did Bristol agree to do this? What is Sarah Palin doing there? Why did Fox News waste its time?

But Greta Van Susteren persisted. In a not-so-shocking revelation, we learn that Bristol doesn't have much in the way of insights to offer. She does say that abstinence is not a realistic strategy but does not expound on what the right approach might be.

She says that baby Tripp brings her joy but, "I wish it would happen in 10 years so I could have a job and an education and be, like, prepared and have my own house and stuff... I just hope that people learn from my story and, I don't know, prevent teen pregnancy, I guess."

I certainly don't expect 18-year-old Bristol to have all the answers -- or any answers at all. She's just a teenager who was unlucky enough to exercise poor judgment just as her mother exploded onto the national stage. I think that the Palins -- and Fox News -- should have sense enough to just say no to such interviews.

Dallas City Hall delivered sobering news yesterday as officials raised the specter of a budget deficit that could reach $100 million. Of course, there were caveats: It's early. The economy could improve, etc. But there's little doubt that balancing the next budget will be a daunting task.

The timing is particularly bad because the city has been making notable progress in reducing crime and improving code enforcement. The gains were made in no small part by spending more and putting more officers on the street.

So, what's a city to do? Raise taxes when many residents already are struggling to pay the bills? Lay off employees? Cut city services?

If the deficit is as big as advertised, how do you balance the budget?

Kansas is broke. My homeland has drained its bank account. The state is suspending income tax refunds and may not be able to make payroll.

While times are tough everywhere, Kansas seems to shifting into a higher economic crisis gear. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is rumored to be in contention for President Obama's Health and Human Services secretary. And given the state of affairs at the Kansas capitol, she may be itching to get out of Dodge.

... so I've dug a little deeper.

She's an educator in special ed (as is my son) and couldn't believe I favored more roads at the expense of education in the stimulus bill. My complaint was that you know where road money goes but can't control what kinds of checks school administrators write.

So in the interest of domestic security, I'm shifting my position. Mi esposa said that lots of the education money goes right to her area of special ed. I checked the bill (it takes awhile to load), and, sure enough, she's right. In Division A, Title VIII, page 127, you'll see $12 billion going to fully fund IDEA programs to assure a free and appropriate education to special-needs kids.

I've been short-sighted. That special ed money could accomplish big things -- like maybe getting mi esposa some help at school so she won't have to be writing reports until midnight on the services kids should get.

I wonder if $12 billion is enough.

Reporter Kent Fischer notes that DISD trustees will get their first look tomorrow at results from the district's much-discussed grading policy. As you'll recall, DISD created an elaborate system of second chances that makes do-overs the norm and gives students an easy out if they fail a test or blow off their homework.

So, how are students faring in the new world order? Not surprisingly, fewer are failing.

Comparing Fall 2007 to Fall 2008, failures in one or more courses in the first six weeks dropped from 49% to 39%. Failures in two or more courses declined from 28% to 20%.

Are the students suddenly smarter? Did this kinder, gentler grading policy bolster learning? Or did DISD install such a massive safety net that failing now requires a concerted effort? With all these second chances for students who choose not to do the work the first time, it's a wonder that anyone is failing anything.

But DISD officials have defended the policy as one that offers students a chance to recover from failure. If that's the bar for success, then mission accomplished.

I figured that months -- or even years -- could pass before Rep. Joe Barton and President Barack Obama publicly agreed on any issue. But the mess that is the BCS has brought the Arlington Republican and the Illinois Democrat together.

Both want to punt college football's Bowl Championship series and create a playoff system that would crown an undisputed champ. Obama has been beating this drum for some time now, and Barton has filed a bill that would force the NCAA and the networks to abandon the controversial cash cow that the BCS has become.

While I'm not convinced that this is a congressional issue, I understand their frustration. Both ends of the political spectrum can agree on the shortcomings of the BCS. I guess bipartisanship isn't dead after all. Now, about that stimulus package ....

Pity the bailed-out banking execs who are forced to subsist on a measly half-mil. This New York Times article makes the semi-sarcastic argument that 500K just doesn't go very far in ultra-posh Manhattan.

Sure, the salary cap that the Obama administration imposed on executives seeking government handouts sounded reasonable. But, as the article notes, this is the Big Apple we're talking about -- not some hick city like Houston.

In fancy-pants Manhattan, the nanny, the driver and the house in the Hamptons are all de rigueur. How could we expect an exec who ran his company off the road to give up such life necessities?

As he exited stage right, George W. Bush made clear that he had no intention of offering play-by-play analysis of President Obama's administration. He would stay out of the political fray, Bush said, and give Obama breathing room to do his job. Most presidents have refrained from Monday morning quarterbacking their successors.

So far, Bush has abided by that code. But clearly, his inner circle didn't get that memo. Top-level Bush officials -- inlcuding Dick Cheney -- already are baring their teeth, growling about everything from Obama's foreign policy to his Oval Office attire. They didn't bother with any sort of grace period or transition time before coming out swinging.

A long list of top-tier Bush aides have been entirely too eager to second-guess the new administration in town. Cheney offered the most jaw-dropping, line-crossing comments when he said that there is a "high probability" of a catastrophic terrorist attack under Obama, suggesting that the new president would rather read a terrorist his rights than protect our country. But even inconsequential critiques, such as Andrew Card's haughty disdain for shirtsleeves in the Oval Office, just look petty.

These former officials certainly are entitled to their opinions. But their bare-knuckled approach to post-White House life won't do anything to bolster the Bush legacy.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: Yet another of President Obama's nominees has a tax problem. Today's Senate committee meeting about Hilda Solis -- the president's pick for labor secretary -- has suddenly been abandoned amid reports that her husband was frantically trying to pay off some longstanding tax liens.

Ms. Solis is an elected official, a member of Congress. Yet, this glitch never surfaced in the past, and despite being in the public eye, Ms. Solis and her husband never bothered to clear it up. Are all these tax scofflaws privy to some sort of insider information explaining that you needn't to bother to pay those pesky taxes? Am I in the minority for naively writing checks when the government says I owe money?

Gov. Rick Perry piqued the interest of the green crowd last week with his proposal to offer a $5,000 rebate to folks in polluted cities who buy a plug-in, hybrid car. But the initial intrigue was quickly supplanted by the all-important question: Where can I buy a plug-in car?

The short answer is you probably can't -- at least for now. But today GM announced plans to roll out its electric car, the Volt, in two test markets: Washington and San Francisco.

Sadly, the rest of us will have to wait almost two years for the Volt to go on sale. And while Perry's proposed rebate is a step in the right direction, that $5,000 won't cover too much of your car payment. The price tag for the Volt is expected to be between $30,000 and $40,000.

This morning's paper had a riveting variation on man bites dog. In this case, dog bites dog, man pulls a knife and cuts dog owner's face. When I saw the headline, "Pet owner accused of stabbing woman at White Rock dog park," I had little sympathy for the switchblade-wielding Michael Armalavage. When his dog got roughed up by another canine, he pulled a knife and managed to cut the other dog's owner above the eye.

But now, Armalavage has surfaced to tell his side of the story. And while I can't vouch for the veracity of his version, he makes a more compelling case for himself than original headline did. He describes the terrifying moments as an angry pit bull came charging toward him and ultimately attacked his dog, disfiguring the pup. He said he was trying to separate the dogs -- not to hurt anybody -- and while our first story used the word "stab," he said the scrape on the woman's face was so minor that paramedics didn't even give her a Band-Aid.

Of course, I don't generally carry a switchblade to the dog park -- or anywhere else for that matter. And that's where Armalavage's defense gets shaky. But this adds an interesting wrinkle to our dangerous dog debate. When pit bulls attack, what can people do to defend themselves?

This morning, Gov. Rick Perry will deliver his state of the state speech. This year, he has his work cut out for him. The economy is foundering. Relatively little may be accomplished this legislative session if the governor and other state leaders continue to resist pursuing new funding sources or tapping into the state's rainy day fund.

No doubt there will be a political subtext to today's speech as Perry prepares for a GOP duel with Kay Bailey Hutchison. The senator already has managed to lure some of Perry's top donors to her camp.

So, with money tight and politics lurking just beneath the surface, what do you want to hear from the governor today? Should transit be top of mind? A tier one university? And the bottom line: What is the state of the state?

The Oak Wood Place apartments were on City Hall's radar screen long before Senior Cpl. Norman Smith was tragically shot to death on Tuesday. Police paid regular visits to this apartment complex turned crime haven. Drug deals were evident; gunfire was frequent; code violations were numerous. Another officer was shot at the East Oak Cliff complex in 1998. Over the years, the city responded to problems as they arose, but the solutions felt more like nibbling around the edges of a much bigger problem. Police and code officers were forever stamping out small brush fires, only to have new ones appear the next day.

Meanwhile, Oak Wood's primary owner, Alex Stolarski, has tried to portray himself as part of the solution -- not the cause of the problems. He touted the improvements he'd made to the complex. Stolarski contributed $5,000 to Mayor Pro Tem Elba Garcia, and she even appointed him to a city board.

But none of this changed the fact that criminals still felt welcome at Oak Wood. Police spoke of the drug dealers monitoring the officers -- not the other way around. Neither the city nor the property's owners managed to put a stop to brazen law-breaking. I would not suggest that tragedies such as this one could be predicted or necessarily prevented. But Oak Wood simply didn't pass the eyeball test. Trouble was evident there, and criminals felt comfortable setting up shop.

Stamping out small brush fires one by one doesn't attack the larger issues at their root.

With little more than 12 hours left in 2008, we're running short on time to set goals for '09. Rather than listing soon-to-be-abandoned resolutions for yourself, offer up your best to-do lists for folks in the public eye.

What should Michael Hinojosa resolve to accomplish next year? What does Tom Leppert need to do? Perhaps you have thoughts for the next president or lawmakers in Austin. Or maybe you have a cure for what ails the Cowboys. Tell us.

Fourteen hours remain until the clock strikes November, so the window for an October surprise soon will close. But lest we believe that this election is a done deal, consider the revelations that have emerged on this day during recent campaigns:
-- In 2000, George W. Bush's drunk-driving arrest came to light on the last Friday before the election.
-- During the final days in 2004, Osama bin Laden released a tape that John Kerry still insists cost him the election.
-- In 1992, former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was indicted four days before the election, reminding voters of the elder Bush's connection to the Iran-Contra affair.

So, with the clock ticking down on October, is there any potential news that could swing your vote to the other side?

Plenty of Republicans have already given up the ship, conducting premature post mortems and musing about 2012. But you can generally count on the candidates themselves to put on a brave face -- at least until the polls close.

Apparently Sarah Palin didn't get that memo. She committed a cardinal political sin in an interview with ABC when she played along with questions that began with the premise "If you lose on Tuesday ..."

I generally applaud frankness from politicians. But any candidate who wants to motivate people to vote for her ticket would offer some variation of "Right now, I'm just focused on a McCain-Palin victory on Tuesday ... " and quickly shut down such loser talk. But Palin not only went along with it, she also offered up some ideas about her political future.

She declared that she would not head home to Alaska, as she still wants a spot on the national stage in 2012. "I'm not doing this for naught," she added.

Apparently she's not doing this to get John McCain elected, either.

Nearly lost in the crush of fascinating campaign news this weekend (Powell! Palin!) was the oh-so-fabulous Chris Matthews interview with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.). The congresswoman declared that Barack Obama is not the only anti-American member of Congress. And then she just kept on digging:

"The news media should do a penetrating exposé and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out: Are they pro-America or anti-America? I think people would love to see an exposé like that," she said.

The interview was TV gold, but it also has meant easy money for Bachmann's opponent. Most folks around the country had no idea who El Tinklenberg was, but thousands wrote him checks anyway. The Democratic underdog in this race had raised $470,000 during the last three months. During the 48 hours after the interview aired, he raked in $438,000.

Sarah Palin started this pro-America nonsense, of course, but Bachmann upped the ante with her Saturday Night Live spoof-worthy interview. For that, Tinklenberg can only say: Thank you.

In a not-so-shocking development, Sarah Palin sat down with Fox News for an interview that largely seemed to focus on giving the veep candidate another crack at those "gotcha" questions that tripped her up before. Carl Cameron was quite accommodating, offering up do-overs and a chance to talk about how annoying Katie Couric's questions were. Apparently, Couric asked the wrong questions, causing Palin to be annoyed, which then contributed to her missteps.

At times, Cameron seemed to be saying, "Now you didn't mean to give this answer, did you? You intended to say something different, right? They were mean to you over at CBS, right?"

But the good news is that Cameron managed to unearth top-secret info: what Palin reads. Here's the answer:

CAMERON: OK. So, at the risk of annoying you, when you are asked, what do you read? Which papers and magazines? You didn't answer it. Or, you said, I have all kinds of resources.
PALIN: Right, right, right.
CAMERON: Well, what do you read?
PALIN: I read the same things that other people across the country read, including the "New York Times" and the "Wall Street Journal" and the "Economist" and some of these publications that we've recently even been interviewed through up there in Alaska.

All this drama over the Economist? As journalist Mike Allen said on Hardball, "Somebody told me, she should have just said The Economist. Everybody lies about reading The Economist."

Not even Mitt Romney could save John McCain in Michigan. The McCain campaign has rather abruptly abandoned the state, slipping out the back door and taking its staff and ads with it.

Apparently, the debacle of the Democratic primary that wasn't still did not put Michigan in play for McCain, who had campaigned there twice in the last few weeks.

The margin for error will be awfully small for McCain if he starts crossing states off the map.

In about an hour, Harlan Crow's political action committee will announce a petition drive aimed at calling an election on the question of whether the city should be in the hotel business. Mayor Tom Leppert and the Dallas City Council have moved swiftly in recent months to build a $400 million publicly owned hotel.

The editorial board has acknowledged the need for a convention hotel, but we've questioned the pace at which these decisions were made -- and the lack of opportunity for public debate. Citizens Against the Taxpayer-Owned Hotel hopes to change that. The group wants to amend Dallas' charter to prohibit the city from financing, constructing or owning a hotel. If Crow's folks get enough signatures, voters would have their say in May.

The city already has selected a developer and authorized spending for some design work. But a referendum could force leaders to hit the brakes.

So, today's question: Should voters have a chance to weigh in on a pricey, publicly-funded hotel? Or did council members act in their constituents' best interests when they approved the hotel?

In presidential politics, everyone has a theme song. But Sarah Palin is struggling to find her soundtrack. It seems that rockers aren't jazzed about lending their names or tunes to the moose-hunting hockey mom.

The McCain campaign first tried out "Right Now" when Palin came on the scene last week, but Van Halen called a halt to that. During the convention, they went with the 1977 Heart song "Barracuda," harking back to Palin's nickname when she played point guard in high school.

But Heart doesn't heart Palin and said as much in a statement that would make the conservative governor blush. The band has issued a cease-and-desist letter to the campaign, declaring that Palin's views and values do not represent their worldview as American women.

So, I guess it's back to the jukebox for the McCain/Palin campaign. If they have interest in a good moose song or Alaska reference, I have a couple suggestions.

I need to know more about the mysterious Sarah Palin before passing judgment. But I thought it would be valuable to put her two whole years of experience into context. She's the governor of Alaska -- a state with a population of 670,000. Her entire state has about as many people as Memphis, Tennessee, the country's 17th-largest city.

So, 16 U.S. mayors -- including Dallas' very own Republican, Tom Leppert -- have more constituents than Sarah Palin. Of course, she has her own mayoral pedigree, in Wasilla, Alaska, population 8,500.

Tonight Hillary Clinton takes the stage, kicking off the two-day Clinton-fest at the Democratic National Convention. Her big moment will do much to determine whether the Democrats depart Denver as a party united.

Clips of Clinton's Monday public appearances suggested that she still was struggling to make an enthused pitch for Obama. She continues to hammer on the argument that she won the popular vote, telling folks in Denver that she received 18 million votes and that Barack Obama received 18 million votes "give or take."

So, today's question is two-fold: 1) What could Hillary Clinton say tonight to convince her supporters to back Obama? and 2) Can Clinton stomach saying those words?

Surprise, surprise. Hillary Clinton's name will be placed in nomination at the Democratic National Convention. Barack Obama delivered the news today, saying that a roll call vote would honor Clinton's historic campaign and unite the party. Translation: The Clintons refused to abandon plans to hijack the convention, so Obama's campaign relented, hoping to at least present a united front.

I'm mystified by the suggestion that wounds will be healed through a painfully long, state by state roll call vote reminding everyone in real time just how close this race was.

So, for those keeping score, Obama has now offered the Clintons:
-- a roll call vote with Hillary Clinton's name in nomination
-- a prime-time speech for Hillary Clinton
-- a prime-time speech for Bill Clinton

And in return, Obama has gotten:
-- Hillary Clinton doing little to dissuade supporters from staging protests and rallies at the convention
-- Bill Clinton giving angry interviews in which he physically cannot bring himself to say that Obama is qualified to be president
-- Neither Clinton making any convincing effort to deliver voters to Obama

At this point, the Clintons seem to be the stars of this show, with Obama relegated to a bit part.

For months, the Dallas City Council has been trying to regain control of the ill-conceived street renaming process for Industrial Boulevard. But the city botched this from the beginning, and the council has never recovered.

So, now Dallas leaders find themselves in an uncomfortable corner, trying to diffuse demands to rename Ross Avenue for Cesar Chavez. How we got from rebranding Industrial with a Trinity River-related name to throwing over the Ross family in favor of someone who has hardly stepped foot in Dallas still boggles the mind.

But on today's editorial page, Mike Hashimoto urges the council to take a step back from a process that has spiraled out of control. If the goal is to respect the Latino community, as Mayor Pro Tem Elba Garcia said, then honoring a local figure who has meant a lot to the city would seem to accomplish that. Mike's editorial suggests Santos Rodriguez.

As the editorial notes, renaming Ross Avenue for Chavez is the right sentiment, wrong guy, wrong road. What's the right road, and who is the right guy (or gal)?

Lest you think that the Clinton-Obama battle was long over, it seems that pro-Hillary forces have continued to push forward with plans to have her nominated at the Democratic convention. Thankfully, word comes today from the New York Daily News that Clinton is at last letting go of that idea. Apparently, she now recognizes what became clear many weeks ago: that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee.

I never understood the value of disrupting and dividing the convention with this charade of nominating Clinton alongside Obama. And the theory that the convention maneuver was somehow for the benefit of Chelsea Clinton (who is, by the way, a grown woman and not a 7-year-old child in need of a girl power life lesson) never added up.

But the Daily News story says that Clinton will not sign the required request that would allow her to be nominated. Finally, logic prevails.

My alma mater, the University of Kansas, wants to make sure that this message is understood: KU has not endorsed Barack Obama. Just so we're clear: no endorsement.

Administrators are feeling angst after the Young Democrats on campus printed up T-shirts that play off of KU's strange-but-fabulous "Rock Chalk" chant. For those of us who are loyal to the crimson and blue, Rock Chalk Jayhawk shirts are standard-issue game day attire.

The Young Democrats thought it would be fun to change that to "Barack Chalk Jayhawk." Clever, right? Kansas Gov. and rumored VP contender Kathleen Sebelius thought so. And she posed for a photo with the shirt.

That prompted much scurrying and clarifying in the ranks of university officialdom. Statements were issued. Pledges of neutrality were reiterated. Needless to say, there will be no more Barack Chalk Jayhawk. So much for fun shirts.

Apparently, former media darling John McCain is none too pleased that some in the press corps now are crushing on Barack Obama. Today, McCain's campaign released "Obama Love," a video montage of journalists fawning over the Democratic candidate.

With "You're Just Too Good To Be True" playing in the background, an assortment of anchors and reporters embarrass themselves with their starry-eyed adoration. There are plenty of cringe-worthy moments (Chris Matthews discussing the "thrill going up my leg" comes to mind), and much of this could be classified as conduct unbecoming for journalists.

But I also wonder how it helps McCain to draw attention to all the unabashed enthusiasm that Obama has generated.

Sunday's story about students' apparent inability to write short, clear responses to TAKS reading comprehension questions prompted much hand-wringing but few easy answers in our morning staff meeting. The question of why Johnny can't write is a troubling one. It seems that Johnny has become more proficient at filling in bubbles on the TAKS, but his critical thinking skills have been called into question.

Theories abound -- perhaps it's our text messaging culture; perhaps this is a result of teaching to the test instead of teaching kids how to think; maybe this has always been a point of weakness for students of a certain age. But the anonymous student answers that accompanied the story certainly were less than impressive.

So, what's a teacher/school district/parent to do? Suggestions welcome.

This morning we're waiting for a judge to rule in the riveting case of Dallas County v. Dallas County, which pits Sheriff Lupe Valdez againt the county commission. The sheriff, for reasons I am struggling to understand, thought that unleashing a camera crew in a jail that has failed five state inspections would yield good publicity. She also didn't think it necessary to alert the commissioners to her plan.

County Commissioners, it turns out, don't like surprises. And they're not convinced that the Discovery Channel chose a jail that's under federal court order to improve conditions with the idea of showing how smoothly things are running. Today, a judge will rule on whether the sheriff or the commission has the final say on whether the documentary crew can film.

Regardless of what the judge says, I don't see the payoff here. The sheriff is making improvements within the jail, but it's still a work in progress. And any documentary worth a darn would point out all the failed inspections and assorted struggles at the jail. Never mind that an inmate just died in the jail after an alteraction with guards -- imagine if the cameras had been rolling that day.

But Sheriff Valdez says this will paint Dallas County in a positive light. What am I missing?

Now that Texas Republicans have recovered from their racist anti-Obama button debacle, they are turning their attention to bumper stickers. And they want you to help them choose the bumper sticker that will help keep Obama out of the White House.

Admittedly, this process has not been nearly as dramatic or entertaining as Dallas' rename-Industrial-Boulevard online voting. But the Texas GOP has narrowed it down to five finalists and has opened up the Internet ballot box:

Obama for Change? That's all you'll have left in your pockets!
Obama won't change me -- I'm voting GOP
High gas prices? Thank a Democrat this November
Barack Obama? Liberal like McGovern, Prepared like Carter
Barack Obama -- The Audacity of HYPE

Go here to vote.

I'm not sure that any of these will guarantee Republican victory, but since none includes random mention of Cesar Chavez, and none is blatantly racist, I'll deem this exercise more successful than most.

The story on our web site says that Texas Secretary of State Phil Wilson is resigning to "pursue other opportunities." What those might be, the story doesn't say -- but the press release in my inbox reveals all.

It seems that Wilson has accepted the job of senior VP for public affairs at Luminant. For those who have lost track amid all the name changes and spin-offs, Luminant is a subsidiary of Energy Future Holdings, which was formerly just plain ol' TXU.

Wilson previously served as deputy chief of staff for Gov. Rick Perry, who has been criticized for being pro-business to a fault, particularly when it comes to green-lighting polluting power plants. Perry put the controversial TXU coal plants on the fast track to approval.

TXU has since been bought out and renamed, but some of the old guard remains. In a not-so-shocking development, Wilson's new job will include oversight of regulatory and governtment affairs efforts. It's interesting how all of those dots connect.

Buried deep in my Metro section was alarming news about three DISD schools. Comstock Middle School, Samuell High School and Spruce High School -- all in Pleasant Grove -- have been rated academically unacceptable for four consecutive years. That disconcerting run could prompt the state to shut them down.

The Texas Education Agency also could consider appointing a monitor or a conservator; or placing the schools under control of a nonprofit or another district.

I can't imagine how disruptive it would be for a neighborhood to suddenly find itself without nearby schools. Shuttling students across town would be a burden for families. But clearly, these schools are struggling mightily, and students are getting short shrift.

So, what's the answer? When a school fails, should the state turn out the lights and lock the doors?

It's not clear whether Hillary Clinton is ready to call it a campaign. But Bill Clinton sounds like a man who's had enough.

Today, in South Dakota, the former president left little doubt that the end is near.

"I want to say also that this may be the last day I'm ever involved in a campaign of this kind. I thought I was out of politics, 'til Hillary decided to run. But it has been, one of the greatest honors of my life to go around and campaign for her for president," he said.

For the sake of exhausted voters everywhere, I can only hope that today is the last day that the Clintons are involved in this campaign. But it does not appear that Hillary received that memo. She's just put out a new fundraising pitch, asking supporters for $5 each to "keep the momentum going."

Day Three: Former City Council member James Fantroy continues to deliberate the rather unusual choice offered up by a judge -- admit guilt or go to prison. I'm fascinated by this directive from the bench -- and by Fantroy's refusal to admit wrongdoing (despite clear evidence that he stole funds from Paul Quinn College).

I know Fantroy from my days at Dallas City Hall, and while I didn't always agree with his judgment, I appreciated his candor. He livened up plenty of deadly dull meetings in the council chambers. So, I was saddened by his cancer diagnosis and by his plea for mercy in court, asking the judge to let him go home and die.

But I think Ed Kinkeade offered Fantroy a fair bargain.Taking responsibilty for your actions seems like a small price to pay for stealing more than $20,000. What do you think? Should the court have mercy on James Fantroy?

The Dallas City Council is not the most decisive bunch. Today, the council's Trinity River Committee met to narrow the list of new-and-improved names for Industrial Boulevard. The plan was to cut from 10 to three. But as Bruce Tomaso reports, council members just couldn't bear to eliminate that many names from the list.

So, instead of three finalists, we have six:
Cesar Chavez Boulevard
Eddie Bernice Johnson Boulevard
Riverfront Boulevard
Trinity Lakes Boulevard
Trinityview Boulevard
Waterfront Boulevard

The council has managed to assemble a mix of bad options and boring alternatives for the boulevard formerly known as Industrial. But I'm more intrigued by the 23-step renaming process. After months of nominating, meeting, voting, caucusing, voting and meeting some more, council members still couldn't pull the trigger and choose three finalists.

Somewhere, in a nearby classroom, a small child is vomiting at the sight of the TAKS test. Another kid is sobbing at his desk. So says today's story about test anxiety.

Apparently the TAKS pressure has become too much for younger students. Teachers are playing soothing music and talking little kids off the ledge.

Is this the only way to gauge student progress? Test-day nerves are nothing new. My heart still skips a beat at the sight of a No. 2 pencil and a bubble sheet. But I was largely spared that stress until I started the PSAT/SAT/ACT gauntlet.

Accountability is important, but Is there any way to ratchet down the do-or-die pressure that's been inflicted on 9-year-olds?

Howard Dean, the Democrats' semi-silent leader, weighed in today on the debacle that is the Democratic nominating process. Without elaborating, Dean decreed: Come June, someone must quit.

Agreed.

Dean went on to say that superdelegates can't wait until the August convention to form an opinion.

Right again, Mr. Dean.

But the Democratic party chairman failed to offer any insights into how this decisive June moment might come about. He suggested no deadlines, no game plans, no explanation of what he and other party elders might do to put an end to this death march to a divided convention.

In fact, Mr. Dean said that his involvement would not be needed. "Either of these candidates, if it's time for them to go, they'll know it and they will go," he said. "They don't need any pushing from me."

Unfortunately, I don't sense that the candidates have received that memo. Nothing about the events of the last month suggests that this race will spontaneously resolve itself on June 3 or that a nominee will be neatly tied up with a bow and delivered to the Democratic convention.

Chaos seems to be the order of the day as a West Texas judge tries to determine custody of 416 children taken from a polygamist sect.

The state is seeking permanent custody of the kids, but the children's mothers are expected to mount a challenge. Sadly, it appears that many of these children have been abused. But is a blanket order sending them all into the state bureaucracy the only answer?

Child Protective Services doesn't have the strongest track record and already appears overwhelmed by the enormity of this case.What's more, the state just paid a $4 million federal fine for failings in Texas' foster care system.

Inevitably, many of these families will be separated. But I'm not certain that painting every family with the same broad brush and taking all these small children away from their parents is the answer. We don't know all the details yet, but reports suggest that many of the women were forced to aquiesce to their husband's will. These mothers were not necessarily abusers -- but more likely were abused themselves.

So, as hearings get under way in San Angelo today, how should the state proceed?

Say one thing for Hillary Clinton: She certainly knows how to spin a yarn. Her dramatic description of dodging sniper fire in war-torn Bosnia was quite compelling. The image of her dashing across the tarmac as bullets sailed past suggested that she was both a first lady and a superhero.

"I remember landing under sniper fire," Mrs. Clinton said last week. "There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

Unfortunately for Mrs. Clinton, these events unfolded in the 1990s -- not the 19th century -- and her trip was well documented. As it turns out, Mrs. Clinton and teen-aged daughter Chelsea arrived in Bosnia, where they walked (not ran) across the tarmac and greeted an 8-year-old girl and assorted dignitaries. Comedian Sinbad and singer Sheryl Crow came along as well, and photos of the trip show everyone having a fine time.

Amazingly, those who crossed paths with Mrs. Clinton in Bosnia -- high-ranking military officials, photographers and even Sinbad -- offered a much different version of this story. Try as they might, no one else could recall encountering sniper fire. So now, Mrs. Clinton has acknowledged that she "misspoke" in her retelling of events.

Is that a sufficient explanation? For me, this trumped-up tale undercuts Mrs. Clinton's credibility when she trots out all these foreign policy credentials from her days as first lady. I think she would be wise to focus more on her experience as a U.S. senator rather than recasting herself as some sort of war hero in the White House.

And for future reference: Any trip that involves Sinbad is not a serious diplomatic mission.

Political pundits are still abuzz about Barack Obama as the cable channels play and replay today's speech. So, it's understandable that few stopped to notice that Hillary Clinton just delivered an address in Philadelphia.

I was eager to hear Clinton's response to Obama's frank analysis of the racial divide in this country. While I didn't expect her to delve into the details of Obama's speech, I thought she would be wise to acknowledge that this is an important discussion for the country to have. Perhaps she could note that talking about race and politics is a dicey proposition, as evidenced by recent events.

Or Clinton could just stick to the script and give another speech about Iraq. She basically settled for that option, offering only a fleeting mention of Obama. Clinton was quick to emphasize that she had not seen nor read Obama's speech but added, "I'm very glad that he gave it. It's an important topic."

Well, I guess that's all that needs to be said about that.

When she took a few questions, a reporter tried to press Clinton with a query about Obama's response to Rev. Wright's remarks. "I think that question should be directed to him (Obama)," she said.

So, apparently race is an "important topic" that Clinton will not be addressing.

Today's Dallas Observer story about Lynn Flint Shaw and her attempted power play at City Hall has prompted plenty of debate about the article's timing. The question: Do you print that story today?

Sure, the article provides interesting context about how Shaw operated. It reveals that she played hardball, making demands of Mayor Tom Leppert and trying to ensure that she and her allies would control access to the mayor and wield power in southern Dallas.

But the story didn't shed light on the haunting question of why Shaw and her husband Rufus were found dead in their bedroom Monday night. The e-mails, while interesting and certainly unflattering, were not career-ending. Even Jim Schutze, who wrote the Observer story, said with great certainty that this was not significant enough to have been the trigger for Monday's tragedy.

With that in mind, I would have delayed publication. The story today is the Shaws' deaths. Everyone is still trying to wrap their minds around Monday's events. This article feels like a somewhat random jab at the dead.

Why not wait a week? Certainly there will be more said about the Shaws' fall from grace, and this is one piece of that puzzle. But 36 hours after they were found shot to death, a story centered on the fact that Shaw was attempting to boss the mayor around seems to miss the point.

If the Observer had uncovered compelling evidence that laws had been broken or that Shaw had bullied the mayor into giving her friends lucrative contracts, this might be a tougher call. But what we've seen so far is a one-sided conversation in which Shaw essentially was stomping her foot and demanding access and power.

And for what it's worth, there doesn't appear to be another side to this conversation. Chris Heinbaugh in the mayor's office has said that this was unsolicited advice from Shaw. And Leppert doesn't recall even bothering to send a response.

I've become increasingly intrigued -- and agitated -- by Hillary Clinton's continued discussion of her willingness to make Barack Obama her No. 2. Bill Clinton, of course, has joined in on this chorus, saying that a Clinton-Obama ticket would be an "almost unstoppable force."

The Clintons act as if this is some magnanimous and unifying gesture, offering to give the Democratic frontrunner the second-tier slot. This conveniently ignores the fact that Obama has won more delegates, more states and more of the popular vote. And never mind the fact that Hillary Clinton is arguing that Obama is entirely unprepared for the presidency while suggesting that he's the best man to be a heartbeat away from the job.

It's a shrewd move to be sure, and Clinton might actually attract a few undecided voters by promising this best-of-both-worlds dream team. But I was glad to see Obama strike back today in Mississippi when he pointed out Clinton's conflicting arguments and forcefully declared that he's not running to be her VP.

Obama summed up the fallacy in all this when he told voters:

"I don't know how somebody who's in second place is offering the vice presidency to somebody who's in first place."

Now that John McCain has elevated from likely nominee to anointed nominee, the chattering classes can turn their attention to handicapping McCain's veep selection. The New York Times already has detailed its own list, which basically consists of a half dozen or so GOP governors and ex-guvs with a modicum of name recognition.

A few weeks ago, I thought that Mike Huckabee was well-positioned for the job, but he might have worn McCain out with his never-say-die campaign. The name I'm most intrigued by -- and the one that should unnerve Democrats -- is Condoleezza Rice. As McCain, a 71-year-old white guy, prepares to take on the first woman or first black nominee, the prospect of adding the secretary of state (who happens to be a black woman) to the ticket is intriguing. McCain could calm a bit of the conservative backlash by selecting a Bush loyalist, but Rice has the added benefit of appealing to some anti-Bush folks.

Of course, this is wild speculation. And Rice has said somewhat convincingly that she has no interest in the job. But I'm suffering from Democratic fatigue today. And with the GOP nominee decided, we're left to ponder: What does McCain need in a No. 2? Discuss.

An article in today's New York Times raises a fascinating question: Does the constitution preclude John McCain from being president? The Arizona senator was born, not in the United States, but in the Panama Canal Zone.

Without further explanation, the constitution requires that U.S. presidents be "natural-born citizens." McCain is a U.S. citizen, of course, but he wasn't born on American soil. Experts on this rather arcane subject consider McCain's situation a grey area, open to interpretation. And a professor who has studied the question extensively told the Times, "It is not a slam-dunk situation."

The consensus view seems to be that with a judgment call such as this, most experts would err on the side of allowing McCain to be president. A tie goes to the runner, as it were. But it's stunning that this far into McCain's second presidential bid -- and more than two centuries after those words were penned -- we're still not quite certain what "natural-born" means.

After leaving Clinton's rally, I was heartbroken to learn that a police officer in her motorcade had been killed in an accident on the Houston viaduct. Clinton canceled her rally in Fort Worth after learning about his death.

She didn't know the officer's fate during her Dallas speech, and if she was aware of the accident, she didn't say. But the possibility that she saw the accident as she drove to Oak Cliff certainly could have contributed to the somewhat deflated tone of the event.

I've been hanging out in a parking lot with Hillary Clinton this morning. And while I knew that her scaled-down event would have a much different feel than the Obama insanity of Wednesday, I still was surprised by how underwhelming it all was.

The Clinton folks barely managed to fill the cordoned off area in a small parking lot with a few hundred folks. Yes it was cold -- and relatively early. But this had the feel of a fading campaign. The festivities kicked off with County Commissioner John Wiley Price trying desperately to fill time at the mike. Eventually, Dallas City Council member Pauline Medrano introduced Clinton, declaring that she's the only candidate who would end the war in Iraq, which seemed like an odd declaration, given Barack Obama's opposition to the war. Medrano said Clinton would be ready for the job on Day One, which prompted chants of "Yes, she can" -- an interesting spin on Obama's "Yes we can" line.

For her part, Clinton gave a competent but very brief speech. She touched on a few issues, listed several Texas towns she had visited, and just when I thought she was getting warmed up, she waved goodbye. Elapsed time: less than 20 minutes. If you were looking for specifics about policies and proposals, you got a lot more detail from Obama's extended speech.

Clinton also struggled to explain Texas' convoluted primary/caucus system. Granted, it's a mess, but she kept saying "conventions" instead of caucuses, which probably left some feeling even more bewildered about March 4.

I'm not certain whether Clinton was tired/cold/in a hurry, but the abbreviated affair was more perfunctory than electrifying.

Barack Obama set a high bar in Dallas with yesterday's spectacle. The record crowds, the all-star supporters, the swooning. No doubt the Clinton campaign saw the line forming at 4 a.m. outside Reunion arena and said, "We can't compete with that."

So, it was a near certainty that when Hillary Clinton made her way to Dallas, she would settle for a scaled-down event. Any attempt to fill the AAC, Reunion Arena or even a Collin County Community College event room (Huckabee's venue of choice) would leave open the possibility of an empty seat and of comparisons to Obamapalooza where hundreds were turned away.

So, with that in mind, what's a candidate to do? Apparently, the answer is to find a spot with no seats and no determined capacity. And Clinton has. Our Trailblazers blog reports that Clinton will be appearing tomorrow at a parking lot in Oak Cliff. (400 S. Zang at 9:30 a.m. if you're interested)

A parking lot -- I guess that's one way to avoid Obama comparisons.

Our editorial board is continuing a listening tour of sorts as we gather information and ideas for our southern Dallas project. And now, it seems, the Dallas City Council is doing some of the same.

Both the editorial board and the City Council have meetings scheduled this week in southern Dallas.

Here are the details:

Tonight, several members of the editorial board will be at Pleasant Mound/ Urban Park United Methodist Church for a town hall meeting. The event is open to the public, and we're planning to let residents do most of the talking about the challenges -- and the bright spots -- they see in their neighborboods.

When: 7 p.m. today
Where: 8301 Bruton Rd.

For its part, the City Council has decided to take its meetings on the road once each quarter. The council's first stop will be at the Dallas Executive Airport on Wednesday. On the agenda: a briefing called "Realizing Potential: A Framework for Enhancing the Southern Portion of Dallas." (apparently that's a fancy way of saying 'Southern Dallas')

When: 6:30 p.m. Wednesday
Where: The Galaxy Hangar at Dallas Executive Airport - 5303 Challenger

Now that Barack Obama is building a semi-sizable lead in the delegate race, Hillary Clinton needs to increase her head count -- and fast. Apparently winning delegates by winning over voters isn't a good option, so she's scrambling. According to the Clinton camp, all's fair in politics and delegates.

The New York Times reports today that Clinton's advisers said they "were prepared to take a number of potentially incendiary steps to build up Mrs. Clinton’s count." Near the top of the list of options is pushing for the reinstatement of the Michigan and Florida delegates, who were supposed to be excluded from this process.

Clinton and Obama agreed not to campaign in those states after Florida and Michigan defied party rules by holding early primaries. In bypassing those states, both candidates essentially agreed with the decision that those delegates would not be seated. And it's a pretty safe bet that plenty of voters stayed home because they knew their votes already had been rendered null and void.

So, for Clinton to try lay claim to those delegates now that she's losing steam would be a pretty outrageous rewriting of the rules. And don't forget about all those superdelegates that Clinton is urging to ignore the will of the voters and support her "for the good of the party."

Does anything go when it comes to delegates? How did the Democrats create this nonsensical system? And how do we fix it?

Two weeks have passed since John Edwards bowed out of the race for the White House, but the bronze medalist for the Democrats still isn't saying who will get his vote (not to mention all those campaign contributions from trial lawyers). Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both continue to jump through hoops, publicly praising Edwards whenever possible, pledging to continue his fight against poverty, and even making semi-secret trips to the Edwards compound in Chapel Hill.

So, what's the hold-up? Does Edwards need more information about Clinton and Obama? I'm sure his campaign's opposition research can tell him whatever he needs to know. Does he want a job? Edwards already had his shot in the No. 2 spot, but he might make a fine attorney general.

Edwards' endorsement certainly is coveted in this still-too-close-to-call race. But with Obama building momentum, Edwards could miss his moment as political power broker if he dallies too long.

This just in: Mitt Romney says he must suspend his campaign so that the terrorists won't win. Now, we have heard many tortured attempts to connect the dots between patriotism and defeating terrorists, but this is a new one.

Here's how the Romney logic works. If he keeps campaigning, then Romney forestalls the start of a national campaign. John McCain will be forced to keep slapping Romney around instead of aiming his slings and arrows at the Democrats. That delay could allow Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama to gain some sort of advantage heading into November, the argument goes.

Then, Romeny posits, a Democrat might win. And, he reminded the conservative group, the Democrats are wrong on the war. If they win, Romney said, then all hell will break loose. And the terrorists will have won.

"If it were only about me, I'd go on," Romney said. But no, this somehow is about al-Qaeda.

As I've flipped up and down the dial, I've heard it reported that Clinton won her home state (New York), won her other home state (Arkansas) and lost her other other home state (Illinois). The talking heads are tripping all over their tongues as they try to differentiate the many places that Clinton calls home.

On the Republican side, Mitt Romney proudly noted that he's won each of his home states: Utah, Michigan, Massachusetts. Unfortunately for Romney, he's coming up a loser when he leaves home.

If Barack Obama was counting on the Kennedys to help him win Massachusetts, he must be disappointed this evening. Clinton is carrying the day in Kennedy country.

Of course, Senator Kennedy's influence extends far beyond his own small state. And the endorsement brought Obama an unparalleled avalanche of the best kind of publicity -- positive and free.

But it is interesting that Kennedy's own constituents backed Clinton -- and Massachusetts wasn't a close call.

The polls have been closed for all of five minutes now, and already Barack Obama has a notched a win with a projected victory in Georgia. He remains strong in the South, and Obama had saturated Georgia with ads, including a spot that aired during the Super Bowl.

Last year, SMU mourned three students whose deaths were linked to alcohol and drugs. Now, a task force charged with tackling substance abuse issues is suggesting that the way to combat drinking on campus is .... bring more drinking to campus?

The task force's ideas reportedly include opening a pub on campus and allowing fraternities to serve alcohol at their bashes. This, the argument goes, would decrease drunken driving because students would be close to home when they're wasted.

I'm no teetotaler. I get that college students drink. But bringing more booze to campus under the guise of safety seems to sidestep the larger issue of preventing alcohol and drug abuse. And SMU (possibly) opening a pub on campus reminds me of the parents who throw keggers for their under-aged kids and argue that at least they know where their drunk children are.

And then there were two ... Democrats. John Edwards is making official today what has been apparent for some time: His presidential bid is over. The only question that remains is when/if/who he will endorse, and apparently we won't get that answer during today's speech.

I traveled with Edwards in 2004 on the campaign trail and came away impressed. He's a smart, charismatic candidate with a compelling narrative, but Edwards also had lousy timing. In 2004, the nominating process started and ended in Iowa, as Democrats wanted to quickly find their guy and begin battling President Bush. Edwards was on the way up and could have benefited from the longer free-for-all we're seeing this time around.

Snagging the No. 2 spot on the 2004 ticket raised Edwards' profile, but it also attached the loser label to him. In this campaign, Edwards never really stood a chance of convincing Democrats to bypass two other candidates who have a chance to make history. Edwards' son-of-a-millworker story was unique four years ago. But up against a first-lady-turned senator and a political rock star with Kenyan roots, Edwards just ended up looking like a rich, white lawyer who seemed awfully angry.

At a recent campaign stop, Mitt Romney launched into his oft-repeated assertion that lobbyists aren't running his campaign. Associated Press reporter Glen Johnson, apparently tired of hearing what he considered to be a falsehood, challenged Romney and interjected some thoughts of his own:

"That's not true," Johnson said. "Ron Kaufman's a lobbyist." Kaufman, chairman of communications firm Dutko Worldwide, is a frequent presence in the Romney campaign.

"Did you hear what I said? Did you hear what I said, Glen?" Romney asked. "I said I don't have lobbyists running my campaign, and he's not running my campaign."

"He's one of your senior advisers," Johnson said.

"He's an adviser," Romney replied, "and the person who runs my campaign is Beth Myers, and I have a whole staff of deputy campaign managers, and --"

Johnson interrupted again. "Ron Kaufman is just there as window dressing? He's a potted plant on your plane?"

The contentious exchange quickly grabbed the attention of the blogosphere. Some lauded Johnson, arguing that journalists have a responsibility to point out when candidates are being less than honest. Others lambasted the journalist, saying that he should just report what the candidate says and let the voters decide.

So, which is it? Are reporters just stenographers? Or should they be fact-checkers and analysts?

Fred Thompson has called it a campaign after spiraling downward for several weeks. In the end, Thompson was a much better candidate in theory than in reality. His popularity peaked when he was flirting with the idea of joining the race, and he started his downhill slide the moment he started answering tough questions.

I knew that the actor-turned-senator-turned-actor wasn't long for the campaign. But I thought he might hang on through Super Tuesday. After all, the writers' strike has shut down Hollywood ... what else is Thompson going to do?

Looking back, the battle over TXU's coal plants had all the makings of a good movie. The saga featured a corporate giant, a well-coiffed politician (Rick Perry could play himself here), the small-town folks who don't stand a chance against TXU's high-powered attorneys .... and the rag-tag coalition that emerges to take on TXU.

Of course, the Hollywood ending to this tale got a little muddled with a complicated buyout, a partial victory, and a do-little Legislature. But you get the jist.

The Sundance Preserve saw the potential and made a documentary about our state's coal wars. Fighting Goliath will be screened in Waco on Thursday night and will hit Dallas on Friday.

The details:

Thursday -- 7 p.m. at Waco's Hippodrome

Friday -- 7 p.m. in Dallas at the Angelika Theatre in Mockingbird Station

Admission is free.

Sadly, the film's narrator, Robert Redford, won't be joining us for the screenings. But other "stars" of the show will be on hand, and I'll be asking them questions in a panel discussion.

The battle over coal plants is even more compelling when set to music. And Robert Redford doesn't hurt, either.

Numbers are trickling in; Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are in a dead heat. But the early numbers that jump out at me are the results showing that so far, Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul are essentially tied with 9 percent.

Remind me again: When does Giuliani plan to start trying? He basically blew off Iowa and New Hampshire, preferring to focus his efforts on more populous states. But the race may have passed him by when his favorite states finally roll around.

Giuliani has described this process as a nine-inning game, and apparently he's sitting out the first four innings. That seems like batting with one arm tied behind your back. And if voters get used to seeing your name down the list next to Ron Paul, they'll stop believing your claim that you're a contender.

My sister, Carrie, just called in to report from her first-ever Iowa caucus. When she arrived at 6:20 p.m. at an elementary school in West Des Moines, she found the parking lot, the overflow lot and the nearby church parking lot all full.

With more than 40 minutes until the caucusing begins, the crowds already are overwhelming. So, it seems the Iowans are champing at the bit tonight.

My sister also casually mentioned that when she went to work today, Mitt Romney stopped by her company's offices to make one last personal appeal. Just another day at the office -- with a major presidential candidate.

T minus one hour until the big event.

That's right, Kansas makes its first-ever BCS bowl appearance at 7 tonight.

But wait -- Iowans will commence with the mysterious caucusing process at 7 as well. Worlds colliding. Politics and any game involving the Jayhawks are my favorite spectator sports, so tonight is big.

The editorial board will be weighing in on the blog this evening. The Morning News reporters stationed in Iowa will have updates from the scene on their Trailblazers Blog as well. And they're still seeking last-minute predictions over on Trailblazers.

Time to grab the remote -- kickoff and caucusing are fast approaching.

After an interminably long wind-up, we're finally ready for some real action in the presidential campaigns. Iowans have been doing their homework, and they're ready to caucus on Thursday. My sister, an Iowa transplant, reports that she's made up her mind (Obama is her guy), but plenty of folks are still mulling their options.

So, six days out, it's time to weigh in:
1. Which two candidates will emerge victorious in Iowa?
2. How much will the results in Iowa matter?

Four years ago, the campaign started and ended in Iowa. Kerry won. Dean screamed. And it was over in an instant. This time, though, I don't expect Iowa to be as influential. The compressed primary schedule and the fact that a few candidates essentially bypassed Iowa should provide a little more suspense and the possibility of multiple candidates notching victories.

The good folks of Iowa still will have some say in this process, but I don't think they'll be the final word in '08.

My predictions: Mitt Romney by a (well-coiffed) hair over Huckabee on the Republican side. Among the Dems, Obama eeks out a win. Clinton pouts but presses on. Edwards has yet another close-but-no-cigar showing in Iowa and goes downhill fast.

Texas has been the country's lethal injection leader for years. But the state reached a new level of death penalty dominance this year. In 2007, Texas executed more inmates than the other 49 states combined. Anybody else see a problem here?

Today The New York Times reports that during the last three decades, Texas' share of executions has held steady at about 37 percent. But this year, more than 60 percent of U.S. executions happened in Texas.

No other state put more than three people to death this year. Our state executed 26.

Of course, a de facto moratorium stemming from a Supreme Court case has halted executions everywhere for now. But the larger point remains: Other states across the country have begun to ask serious questions about capital punishment. Why hasn't Texas?

David R. Dow, a University of Houston law professor, makes a chilling prediction in the Times. He foresees a day when essentially all executions occur in Texas:

“The reason that Texas will end up monopolizing executions,” he said, “is because every other state will eliminate it de jure, as New Jersey did, or de facto, as other states have.”

This weekend marked the long-awaited debut of the Big O's -- Oprah and Obama. They were greeted like rock stars in Iowa and South Carolina. And while the crowds raucously cheered the senator, they went absolutely wild for the "first lady of television."

Oprah wisely said that she wasn't there "to tell you what to think. I am here to ask you to think." But her appearances begged the question of whether her influence extends to the voting booth.

Viewers seem to live and die by her book recommendations and her "favorite things." But politics is uncharted territory for her.

So, today's question: In matters political, does Oprah matter?

I don't oppose any and all vouchers, but the ad hoc approach that Mike suggests seems unworkable. So, is Alex Sosa the only child in Texas who qualifies for this special arrangement? Or can anyone apply?

What happens when 1000 more families come forward with similar predicaments? Do only children with Asperger's qualify? What if the public schools could accommodate my child's disability, but a specialized, private school is better equipped to teach my child?

The Sosa case points up a number of important questions. But I don't think that the answer is to make up the rules as we go along, awarding vouchers on a case-by-case basis.

Sharon says: Dallas has a hefty $2.65 billion budget this year. Somewhere in that pile of money, there must be some dollars that could go directly to help schools. Would you support putting public dollars into DISD schools and why/why not?

Despite the eye-popping budget numbers, the City of Dallas doesn't have much cash to spare. City Hall has plenty of its own complex and expensive problems -- crime and code enforcement, for starters -- and can't really afford to save our schools.

Asking the city to provide DISD with a cash infusion seems like robbing Peter to pay Paul. The city then would be forced to spend less on police, parks, potholes, etc. -- or raise our taxes to make up the difference.

I strongly support efforts to bolster DISD and to ensure that schools are well funded. But I'm not convinced that tapping into city coffers is the answer.

I think Tom Leppert is right to pressure the corporate community to contribute. As Mike Rawlings, the city's homeless czar, recently noted: If there's one thing Dallas does well, it's fundraising. The city's done a heckuva job raising hundreds of millions for the arts and signature bridges (no knock on either).

We haven't seen similar pushes for schools. I hope that with the mayor and other high-profile folks making the pitch, we'll see that today's announced dollar figure was just seed money to get things started.

With the clock ticking down to tomorrow's Cowboys-Packers extravaganza, the Dallas and Green Bay mayors couldn't resist the urge to do one of those cheesy loser-sends-over-some-local-cuisine bets.

But I must say, I don't think there's much in it for the foodies of Dallas. When the Cowboys win, we'll be receiving football-shaped sausages (and some cheese) from Green Bay. Perhaps I'm alone here, but sculpted meat products do not seem like a prize.

To his credit, Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert sounded a little bewildered as well. His office tried to be diplomatic about the whole thing, but here's what the press release says:

The mayor is very curious about the prize he expects to come from Green Bay. “I’m looking forward to getting that basket of football shaped sausages,” he said. “I’ve never seen something like that. Must be a Wisconsin thing.”

After trending downward for some time, President Bush has notched a few recent successes. The Washington Post notes today in a page one story that attacks are down in Iraq; the budget deficit is dwindling; a new attorney general has been confirmed; and progress is evident in North Korea.

But, has anyone noticed?

Peter Baker writes that this good news is also the absence of bad news — Dick Cheney hasn’t shot anyone lately, the president hasn’t had any ‘Brownie’s doing a heckuva job,’ moments, etc.

Bush still faces plenty of challenges, and I'm certainly not arguing that major missteps of the past should be forgotten. But recent successes are drawing relatively notice. This raises the question: In terms of public opinion and the president's legacy, do Bush's actions now matter? Or have people already made up their minds and moved on to '08?

Newsweek writes in its current issue about Texas' increasing discomfort with the death penalty, noting that prosecutors and juries now are less willing to seek and impose capital punishment. The entire piece is interesting, but the most notable section centers on the Dallas County district attorney.

When he was elected, Craig Watkins said emphatically that he would not shy from the death penalty. But in the Newsweek interview, Watkins comes across as far more conflicted. Newsweek writes:

... Craig Watkins is not sure how he feels. "It depends on which day you ask me," says Watkins, 39. "I'm sitting here at my desk looking at some autopsy photos. So, yeah, I'm for it." (He was reviewing the 1996 case of a woman who killed her son and now sits on death row.) "But when I come out of church on Sunday morning, I'm against it."

This isn't exactly an about-face, but it definitely is a different tone and a murkier stance. I'm part of the editorial board majority that opposes the death penalty. So, I can't criticize someone for having misgivings about capital punishment. But I think it's important to understand our district attorney's position.

Should we rely on Watkins' earlier declaration about convicted killer Thomas Miller-El?
"He needs to be on death row. He should have been dead a long time ago," Watkins said earlier this year.

Or should we depend on Watkins' post-church conversion?

Rodger, I know you said we couldn't echo a reader nominee. But I just wanted to draw attention to the first name on your list: KU quarterback Todd Reesing.

What an inspired choice --- not that I'm biased or anything. Reesing is an Austin kid who was passed over by all the Texas schools because he was too scrawny to play QB. Now, he's led KU to their first 10-0 record since 1899. Rock Chalk Jayhawk.

Rod asks: What evidence do we have that minorities in Irving are being routinely and systematically denied representation on the council?

Well, for starters, I would submit the photos of the nine-member Irving City Council. They're all white. And while that alone doesn't necessarily prove up a systemic problem, the council doesn't even come close to reflecting the city's population.

Certainly minority voters who choose to stay home share in the blame. But plenty of voters disengage when they don't feel like they have a voice and when they don't see themselves represented. And minority candidates in Irving surely would face an uphill climb, running against well-heeled establishment candidates with more money.

That's not to say that Dallas' system is perfect -- far from it. But single-member districts have changed the dynamic at City Hall, giving political power to all parts of the city. Irving has grown large enough that different neighborhoods have disparate needs. If the council is filled with white officials from the same part of town, some areas likely are getting short shrift.

Should Bloomberg run? Yes.

I say this only for selfish reasons. I like a little political chaos. And I think Bloomberg's candidacy -- especially as an independent -- shakes up the race and makes the other contenders uncomfortable.

There's certainly no shortage of candidates, but plenty of folks don't see a good option in the bunch. Bloomberg would bring a different perspective, and he might force some of the other presidential wannabes to stray from their scripts and answer tough questions.

That said, I don't think Bloomberg would have much of a shot. He's an acquired taste and lacks that rock star quality. There's only so much room for New York City mayors in a given race, and Bloomberg can't really compete with Giuliani as America's mayor.

Voters in the Midwest don't necessarily know that much about Bloomberg, and he could be relegated to being "that other New York mayor."

Most voters won't be swayed by a single endorsement -- from Pat Robertson or anyone else. The many high-profile endorsements that Giuliani has snagged in rapid succession could begin to have a cumulative effect as voters begin to feel a sense of inevitability. But I don't think many people choose a candidate based on the opinions of one famous person.

And I definitely don't expect that people who oppose abortion would suddenly overlook Giuliani's stance on this issue just because Pat Robertson offered a vote of confidence.

Obviously, reports of the toll road's death were greatly exaggerated. Many on both sides were predicting victory for Angela Hunt et al. Today, they're asking: How could we have been so wrong?

Well, it was easy.

Elections aren't a test of who screams the loudest. The no-toll road contingent was brash, and many mistook their volume for depth of support. This is a good reminder that we're still trying to figure out the new calculus for online politics. A lot of us were sucked into an echo chamber of angry bloggers and the people who read them, and we lost sight of the folks who just quietly cast their votes.

This wasn't a referendum that cut along traditional political lines, and without any public polling data, most of us were flying blind with our predictions. I’m not trying to diminish TrinityVote’s effort — their message resonated with 47 percent of voters. But spend an afternoon trolling local blogs, and you likely would have been convinced that Ms. Hunt’s side would win in a walk.

I was voter No. 91 at my Lakewood polling place this morning. I had half-expected to have the place to myself but was surprised to see my neighbors and a steady stream of folks who were willing to take a crack at deciphering the hieroglyphics of the Trinity proposition.

My not-so-bold predictions:
1. All constitutional amendments pass, with the cancer proposal showing the narrowest margin.

2. Confusion carries the day on City Proposition 1.
I was well-versed on the counterintuitive Trinity question, the yes-no/for-against confusion and the bottom-and-back-of-the-ballot placement. But despite my intense pre-voting prepping, I still had to double-check that I had voted correctly on the Trinity proposition.

The ballot question was well hidden, and the single use of the word "Trinity" was buried in a block of text. Only the most determined of voters -- those who have already plowed through the question of whether we need an inspector of hides and animals -- will be weighing in on the Trinity.

If confidence counts, then Angela Hunt will be throwing a victory party tonight. She's sounding increasingly upbeat. And Mayor Tom Leppert, who has been repeating the words "cautiously optimistic" again and again, is sounding more cautious and not so optimistic.

Rodger is slowly but surely torturing us with shame and leftover Halloween candy, wearing down our resistance until we relent and answer his question.

So here's my anwer: No.

Now, here are my three objections to Rodger's ground rules.

1. Although we have a pretty good idea where he stands, Rodger hasn't even answered his own oft-repeated question.

2. Questions about just wars and Christian teachings are tangential and distracting.

3. Rodger is injecting emotion, extraneous personal details and situational ethics into what should be a policy question. This isn't about what we, as individuals would do to save ourselves, our spouses, or orphaned puppies in a cinema-worthy crisis situation. This is about American and international law and is a question about what techniques we are comfortable with our government employing. Accordingly, we must ask ourselves if we would be comfortable with other countries adopting the same standard when American detainees are involved.

With that in mind, I ask Rodger: If a foreign government takes a U.S. soldier into custody, believing that he knows where a bomb might go off in their country, should they use waterboarding to extract that information? What if that soldier is your son?

After re-reading former CIA officers' description of waterboarding, I'm firmly in the 'No' camp:

Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.

According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess.

City Council member Angela Hunt has been at odds with our editorial board for the last several months. We have urged folks to vote against Hunt's Trinity proposition. And Hunt, in turn, has sharply criticized us at every turn. She and her allies have expended a great deal of energy trying to discredit The Dallas Morning News.

That's why I choked on my coffee this morning when Hunt's first and only commercial suddenly appeared during "Good Morning America." The TV spot (sadly, it's not online yet) is all about the Morning News. And it leaves no doubt in viewers' minds that our newspaper is squarely on Hunt's side.

The entire ad is a recitation of random phrases that have appeared in news coverage related to the toll road campaign.

The commercial quotes the Morning News saying that the other side has presented "suspect statistics as truth." Later, the word "figments" flashes on the screen as the announcer says that's how the newspaper describes the other side's claims.

These words have appeared in our newspaper. Both of those quotes came from the Ad Watch feature that our newsroom uses to dissect mailings and ads produced by each campaign. In each case, the Ad Watch raised questions about whether the "Vote No" folks had made statements that they couldn't entirely back up with facts.

So, technically, Hunt is accurately quoting the Morning News. But practically speaking, Hunt is leaving an impression that's dead wrong. Apparently that was her goal.

The Dallas Observer has been Hunt's devoted ally in this fight -- last week, that paper even devoted its cover to her message. But that's nowhere to be found in the ad.

So, after spending months trying to pick us apart, Hunt now wants to hitch her campaign to the Morning News name.

I'm not a fan of Safire's options, but I will grudgingly play along. Since these are wild guesses and not a pledge of allegiance, I'm not really sure how Rodger could use this against me, anyway.

My answers:
1. b
2. a
3. a
4. a
5. pointless question -- McCain isn't winning anything.

The New York Times editorial board has launched a blog of its very own. The Times already has several blogs, so it was only a matter of time before the editorial page chimed in.

I'm sure it will be a fascinating read. But I am little perplexed by the decision to make most of the posts anonymous. So far, entries are being written "by the editorial board."

I'm imagining all 19 member of the NYT board gathered around a keyboard, jostling for position and debating who gets to type each blog post.