[LandQuail]

Brilliant punctuation, there, clutch.

Yeah, it really doesn't add up, does it? Unless, of course, you add greed into the equation.

These farmers who stand to profit from corn-based fuel in no way resemble Pa Joad. We're talking big, big money families who measure their farms in square miles rather than acres. They've got domesticated journalists and disillusioned statesmen on the payroll as lobbyists. They speak loudly while carrying their big sticks, and their kind has had a hand in royally ****ing up the last three decades of American policy.

It's hard to keep faith. The likely GOP presidential candidate, Mick Huckabee, is, like the 'Quail, an Arkansan. I've had a few chances to talk to him both professionally and off the record. He's undeniably slick, just like Bill Clinton was, but unlike Bill, he's not got that intangible X-factor that marks him as trustworthy. It's something you have almost to trust your sense of smell to discern...

It's all up in the air in America. Kubla Khan would be a better statesman than our current President, but following the same path of reason, aren't we dangerously vulnerable to hopping merrily out of the frying pan that is the G.W. Bush presidency and into the fire of another inept fool?

Anybody can make themself look good on paper, and one of our motley crew of candidates will have their bite at the Big Burrito, but history is the real judge of nations and the awful pickles their leaders stumble them ass-first into.

Hopefully whoever we get sitting in the Oval Office, in that chair that's probably still got a few dark stains in the cushion from JFK's and Bill Clinton's off-the-clock exploits, will still retain a little sense after their dizzying ride to the top.