The Great Republican Disaster, from Reagan to Bush the Lesser, has been the Time of the Unreal. (Yes, people possessed by the unreal are very much like the undead. They’re mindless, lethal, they infect others, they’re very hard to stop, and their existence is a complete surprise to people who live in the real world.) Those forces of darkness derive their power from their Great Myths.

No matter how powerful a myth is, if it is essentially false, reality has certain methods fighting back. It uses Failure, If failure fails, it moves on, through Fiasco, to Disaster.

Recently there have been signs of hope.

Yes. Hope means Obama. He speaks of reality, whether it’s about race or a gas tax holiday.

Lo and behold, people actually have heard, listened, and agreed.

Let us seize the time and create New Truths, based on Reality, to replace the Old Myths based on Bullshit.

There will be plenty of time to chart Barack Obama's attempt to navigate a course between the exigencies of the old politics and the promise of the new, between yesterday and tomorrow, youth and experience, black and white. For now, take a moment to consider the mind-bending improbability of what just happened.

For months I've been hearing Hillary call herself a victim. I've heard her mantra that bouncing back from adversity is "the story of her life." Each time I hear it, I wonder just what her misfortunes have been. From my perspective, Hillary's life seems pretty damn good. She grew up in a toney neighborhood in Chicago. She went to excellent schools. She attended an Ivy League University. She married the man of her dreams and "chose" to stay with him. She did lose her father, but thankfully her mother and brothers are alive. She has a wonderful daughter, legions of fans, enormous intelligence and apparent good health. She also has great power -- which she uses in any way that suits her. So why is she complaining??

Unlike Hillary, Caroline lost her father when she was only five. Less than five years later she lost her surrogate father, Bobby Kennedy, too. She grew up in the lens of the camera, which she never sought. And she never misused her celebrity. She had the freedom of wealth — but it never diverted the tragedies she publicly endured.

Is she completely out of her mind? Watching her pretend she had a shot at the nomination redefined ambition as sightless, dangerously reckless, and a harbinger of doom for anyone who came near her. Now she has the unmitigated gall to invite herself into the veep spot. Imagine her and Bill in the White House. Obama would have to be completely and utterly mad to even consider her as a running mate. She would be interjecting herself before every camera within sight. She would babble into every microphone, no matter who had been invited to speak. She would behave as if she were in the top spot, but unlike Cheney, she’d never be quiet or unobtrusive. Obama’s hair would be snow-white within months of taking office.

Hillary was very useful for those paying attention to the nominating process. She demonstrated, every hour of every day, the fixated, obsessed compulsion to win, win, win — at any cost and to hell with the party, the nation, and the office itself.