Watching the news today with all their New Hampshire tracking polls is a little like watching the early morning football game. You'll be watching one thing and in one corner of the screen you'll be bombarded with all these updates and statistics that go by so quickly you can't make sense of them. Then, in the middle of something completely different, like say the latest on the Michael Jackson/Kobe Bryant/Scott Peterson/Martha Stewart trial, there will be an Update and the newscaster will come out and say something like "our latest tracking poll shows that in the past two hours, John Kerry has gone from 33% to 31%! Could this mean trouble for John Kerry's nomination? Stay tuned as our political pundits endlessly debate the past hours latest developments in hopes that they actually get something right."

Considering how many polls there are, how many times they're done, and the small amount of New Hampshire voters, you have to wonder how all these polls are done. Do they just call whomever, even if they've already answered a poll? ("oh, hello Zogby, I'm on the other line with ABC News right now, I'll be just a minute") Or do they keep on calling the same people over and over again? ("oh yes, Sanjay, Susan did win her basketball game this weekend, thanks for asking. And I'm feeling a little Edwards-ish this afternoon….no, four won't work as I've got a hair appointment. Try calling a little later") Maybe they just have nanoprobes attached to various New Hampshireites and every little change in opinion is monitored by the nanoprobe? ("Here's the latest- John Smith of Derry New Hampshire was reported to having warm feelings about Wesley Clark, which either portends a possible last-minute Clark surge or Mr. Smith had the McDonald's griddle breakfast again")

By the way, it looks like cranky Dean is back (or as the Daily Show refers to him, "Gollum-Dean," which is opposed to the much nicer, sedate "Smeagol-Dean"). I may not want Gollum Dean to win, but he is so much more fun when he's cranky. You gotta admire the guy for going out there and having the balls to say what he's saying. I saw this morning, for instance, he got into a scuffle with Wolf Blitzer during an interview with Dean and Dean's frumpy "I-so-don't-want-to-do-this-and-when-this-is-over-Howard's-ass-is-all-mine" wife. Wolfie asked Dean for the hundredth time about the "I Have a Scream" speech and in response, Dean snippily laid into Wolf for dwelling on it and then accused the news media of playing it up because they were more into "entertainment" than "news." Wolf, of course, got all huffy and gave him the gaping "what do you mean we're here to entertain people, we're a news organization" response, as if nobody can dare question the integrity of CNN. Then he went on to say something like "you can see the rest of the interview after our hour-long in depth analysis of Renee Zellwigger's weight and a special Larry King as Larry talks to Princess Diana's gynecologist about his memories of the late Princess."

Then there's Fox News being all into Dean for having the gumption to say that Iraqi's might not actually be better off after the war, especially those who we, umm, killed. Of course, that shows Dean's utter inexperience about things because everybody knows it's not really about what the Iraqi's feel about the war, it's about how we feel. And if the Iraqi's might be a little upset with the loss of water, electricity, jobs, or life, that's their problem.

I mean, Jesus, Howard, get your head out of your ass.