Three names suggest themselves in this category. The first, sad to say, is Sarah Palin. While some dismiss her with the term (which she herself uttered on Saturday Night Live) "Caribou Barbie," my educated guess is that we have not seen the last of Alaska's governor on the national stage. Because while the list of things Palin lacks is long and daunting, she has one star quality which may prove to be strong enough to cancel all the rest out -- charisma. A politician can learn about such mundane things as world events and how to speak with political finesse, but charisma can't really be learned -- it's more of an innate quality. And Palin's got it. For those laughing at the prospect of Sarah Palin ever reappearing, I caution that when Ronald Reagan first ran for president, we all laughed at him, too. An actor becoming president? Pre-pos-terous! So don't underestimate charisma, or Palin's ambition.

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Welcome to our annual awards! For the past three years, this column has paid homage (translation: "ripped off their gimmick") to the McLaughlin Group television show by handing out our own year-end awards (while using the same categories). This will be a two-part column, with the second installment appearing one week from today. And feel free to watch the McLaughlin Group on your local PBS station this weekend, to compare my picks with theirs.

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I know it's a lot more interesting to talk about two shoes getting thrown at President Bush in Iraq, but two more important stories are getting ignored as a result. These are two metaphorical "shoes" thrown at Bush, by the Senate and by Bush's own Inspector General in Iraq. And they're going to have a much more lasting impact on how history sees our Iraq adventure than one video clip of a guy hucking his footwear at President Bush. Because they deal with torture, and the failure of the Iraq reconstruction effort.

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The history of profanity in American political discourse is an untold story out there just waiting for someone to research and write about -- although finding a willing publisher might be a bit of a problem. Because it seems we're back to the Nixonian days of "[expletive deleted]."

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So while some have decried this timetable for withdrawal, I think it is going to wind up facilitating a much faster overall American withdrawal than would have happened without the six month deadline. Events may prove me wrong, but that's how I see it now.

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There has been a lot of ink spilled over the ramifications of the agreement recently struck between the United States and Iraq on our presence there for the next three years. The Status Of Forces Agreement ("SOFA") was passed by the Iraqi Parliament and signed by all three members of the Iraqi Executive Council, meaning it will have the force of law come the first of January, 2009. President Bush has decided that his signature was enough for America to enter the agreement, so Congress never got their say on the document. But with such commentary flying left and right, I thought I would go to the document itself to see what it actually says (versus how people are interpreting it).

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I mean, it is so fantastical I had to actually laugh at it. Because of course every single right-winger in America who has been using such language will immediately start using the same language about George Bush. All who have called the concept of an American "timetable for withdrawal" as being: downright dangerous, weak, a surrender, cowardly, losing a war to al Qaeda, giving up on the War On Terror, giving the terrorists what they want, a crazy Democratic idea, a dangerously naive idea by [insert name of Democratic politician here], proof that Democrats love to lose wars, proof that Democrats are un-American, anti-American, and blame-America-first -- all of the people who have ever uttered anything of that ilk will of course be intellectually honest and consistent, and will now denounce Bush in exactly the same fierce language as they have used previously. Because to do otherwise would just reveal their monstrous hypocrisy. And of course they will not shirk their duty to do so, since they've been provided with such a shining example of an American leader "caving in to terrorists" and surrendering in the face of the enemy. Of course they'll denounce Bush just as strongly as they have been denouncing others who have espoused such views.

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Bush's meeting is going to last six hours. And nobody expects it to come up with anything even close to the same magnitude of what happened in Bretton Woods. Nobody sane, that is. So please, media types, don't call it what it's not. Let's have some truth in advertising here. Call it "Desperate Bush Lame-Duck Photo-Op With World Leaders Who Would Really Rather Be Talking To Obama," if you have to slap a label on it. Because that's a lot closer to what it's going to be.

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And now we find ourselves a few weeks out from Election Day, and things are looking pretty good for Democrats everywhere. It's been an exhausting campaign, and I don't think anyone can argue that the Grateful Dead lyric I used as this week's title is inaccurate. It has been a long and strange journey indeed.

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I've been saying for a while now that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki holds the upper hand in the game of "chicken" he's playing with George Bush over negotiating a Status Of Forces Agreement (SOFA) for American troops to legally stay in Iraq past the first of next year. Now it appears both sides are pretty close to admitting that there will be no agreement, and that they had better start talking about some sort of short-term arrangement, which would allow whoever America's next president is to take over the negotiating table.

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