General Wesley "Flap-jaw" Clark recently said of John McCain that "riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down" is no qualification to be president, and the immediate accusation was that he was guilty of "swiftboating." Two disgraceful things are going on here, starting with Clark's mouth.

Shhh. Listen. Hear that? It's a pulse. Faint, but there. An actual sign of life, one that could allay the fears of many about the state of Republicans in Congress.

Barack Obama and John McCain led voters to believe they would rise above the old politics and offer something new. The way things are going, however, their general election campaign is shaping up as politics as usual, which suggests it's going to be business as usual in Washington regardless of which candidate makes it to the White House.

Dick Cheney was angry.

"To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies."

From the Washington Post, Friday, June 27:

'We've had about as positive a presidential campaign that we've seen in maybe a generation," Barack Obama told Fox Business Network Thursday. Perhaps, but that's not saying much. The gravity of the issues -- war and terrorism abroad, an economy struggling with soaring energy prices and mounting foreclosures at home -- is belied by the triviality of the campaign debate. The political discourse is dominated by misleading sound bites and blistering e-mail accusations. Each campaign pounces on a misstep -- or alleged misstep -- by the other, or someone loosely associated with the other, and seeks to inflate it into the telling faux pas of the day, or at least the hour. In this, the campaigns are aided and abetted by a 24-7 news mentality that needs fresh, and easily digestible, material to keep the audience entertained without taxing its attention span.

From the Christian Science Monitor, Friday, June 27:

Congress hopes to pass a bill soon that aims to rescue enough at-risk homeowners to put a price floor under a collapsing housing market. In theory, everyone benefits. In practice, well, the rescue plan itself might end up needing a rescue, at taxpayers' expense.

"From now on, we will encourage heroic efforts in engineering, and we will reward the greatest successes."