@Dave,
@Nahncee,
Thank you for the kind words.
The big puzzle with Obama is where is the reality? Is he the ultimate self made man, the new Gatsby? Is he really an empty suit, the new Chance from Being There? Is he a sociopath creating a reality he gets others to submit to, the Talented Mr Ripley? Is he truly the product of long term planning and training by Frank Davis, Bill Ayers and Islamists in Indonesia and Pakistan, a Manchurian Candidate? These choices become increasingly bizarre and unlikely. The problem is that we begin to reject them based on the very intolerability of their implications and not because of anything we know about the man himself. After this election I expect that there will be a push to ensure that we have a healthier system in which politicians are carefully observed over a period of time. That would produce a more Parliamentary form of government with stronger party organizations. The problem is that system would have produced only one of the four national candidates now running, Joe Biden. Neither McCain nor Palin, or any other reformer, would have been raised to the top in a British system of strong party controls. The wonder is that Thatcher did.