What I Am Reading This Morning

1)"For McCain, Lighter End After Years On the Trail" - In some alternate universe, John McCain picked Joe Lieberman as his running mate, openly rebuked the far-right wing of his party, fired Steve Schmidt, and publicly refused the endorsements of Bush, Rove, and Cheney. He agreed to do three town-hall meetings with Obama, where they had several exciting and informative exchanges about the intricacies of the capital gains tax and the difference between "tactics" and "strategy" in modern warfare. No one in the McCain campaign has ever used the phrases "socialist," "appeasement," or "pallin' around with terrorists" in reference to Obama. Latest polls show Obama coasting to a victory, winning every state but Arizona and Utah.

2) "Nuggets Dealing Iverson to Pistons" - Go Celtics. Go Cavs. Go... Bobcats. I now have a new team to despise in the East.

3) " 'Joe said this morning when I walked into the coffee shop, 'It sure is quiet in town,' ' Clark Weber told me, referring to one of his neighbors. 'There was nobody on the streets. Everybody's pickup was in front of the right house. Nobody had run off with nobody's wife. Joe and I sat there and looked at one another and drank coffee, and we couldn't even think of anything to talk about.' " - Pamela Colloff, "Exile on Main Street: George W. Bush's Weary Neighbors"

4) "It was not really till after their recent long talk that she knew how deeply, how quite exhaustively, they had communicated - so that they were to remain together, for the time, in consequence, quite in the form of sociable drinkers who sit back from the table over which they had been resting their elbows, over which they have emptied to the last drop their respective charged cups. The cups were still there on the table, but turned upside down; and nothing was left for the companions but to confirm by placid silences the fact that the wine had been good." - Henry James, The Golden Bowl