I can appreciate how difficult it must be for a news outlet like the Associated Press to find new and interesting things to write about when it comes to the presidential campaign. For that matter, I can even appreciate that, once in a while, a story with a human-interest angle might help break things up a bit.

But as part of my ongoing fascination with the AP’s awful coverage of the campaign, I’m afraid this item is just silly.

If the presidential election goes to the dogs, John McCain is looking like best in show.

From George Washington’s foxhound “Drunkard” to George W. Bush’s terriers “Barney” and “Miss Beazley,” pets are a longtime presidential tradition for which the presumed Republican nominee seems well prepared, with more than a dozen.

The apparent Democratic nominee Barack Obama, on the other hand, doesn’t have a pet at home. The pet-owning public seems to have noticed the difference. An AP-Yahoo! News poll found that pet owners favor McCain over Obama 42 percent to 37 percent, with dog owners particularly in McCain’s corner.

The AP quoted one person saying, “I think a person who owns a pet is a more compassionate person — caring, giving, trustworthy. I like pet owners,” and found another willing to argue on the record that if a person owns a pet that “tells you that they’re responsible at least for something, for the care of something.”

This poll and related story are even worse than the usual palaver. Mark Blumenthal has the definitive take-down.

Just google your senator's name and you'll find the information.

ReddHedd:

"Your action steps: call both your Senators first thing in the morning and ask if they support Russ Feingold's censure proposal. If they don't, ask what their position is on the issue -- and why.
The more people we have calling, the more staffers in the offices start to realize that Feingold struck a political chord with a bunch of us in America. And then the more we continue to call, the more that message starts to sink in...and then some. Plus, it forces Senators to go on the record one way or the other, which is useful information for all of us to have...read on

georgia10 has more contact information:

"Five minutes is all it takes, really. Less, if you're not that chatty. In five minutes, you can speak up for the rule of the law. In five minutes, you can put your own footprint in history, as one of the mass of millions who advocated for the censure of a President who broke the law...read on"

because, The Poor Man says, he is on the record as believing that the Geneva Conventions are "quaint" is understandable, but not quite the point. The point is this:

To protect subordinates should they be charged with torture, the memo advised that Mr. Bush issue a "presidential directive or other writing" that could serve as evidence, since authority to set aside the laws is "inherent in the president."

Albert Gonzales thinks that the Magna Carta is liberal pablum. We are, at some point, going to have an honest debate about what is and isn't appropriate treatment of suspected terrorists under the law. But that's later. Right now, we just need to establish that Law still exists.

[And while we're on the subject: what executive order?

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When you have questions about how upset the gay community is over the choice of Rick Warren to give the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration, who better to ask than equally anti-gay homophobe Mike Huckabee?

Predictably, Huckabee's response is a big ol' heaping cup of "so what?":

VAN SUSTEREN: Let me jump to another topic, which you probably weren’t expecting, is that President-elect Obama has chosen Rick Warren to give the invocation and there are a lot of gay Americans very upset. What do you make of this?

HUCKABEE: Well, it’s ridiculous for people to be upset with Rick Warren. He’s one of the most influential spiritual leaders of this generation. I’ve known Rick for over 30 years. We were actually in seminary together in Ft. Worth, Texas, back in the mid-1970s. He is today what he always has been, and that’s a humble, gracious, thoughtful, very intellectual capable person. I think it’s a wonderful thing that Barack Obama reached out to him. I thought it was a tremendous expression on Barack Obama’s part. I’m proud that Rick Warren is going to do it and I think that people ought to recognize…look, that’s part of what being religious is all about. You have strong convictions and nobody is going to have a religious leader who is in agreement with everybody.

Talking about avoiding the question. No one is demanding a religious leader who is in agreement with everybody--what a strawman. But it would be nice to have -- in this post-partisan age Obama is allegedly ushering in -- to have "inclusiveness" actually mean all of us.

To understand how angry and disappointed many Democrats are that Barack Obama has invited evangelical preacher Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inaugural, imagine if a President-elect John McCain had offered this unique honor to the Rev. Al Sharpton -- or the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. I know, it's hard to picture: John McCain would never do that in a million years. Republicans respect their base even when, as in McCain's case, it doesn't really return the favor.

Only Democrats, it seems, reward their most loyal supporters -- feminists, gays, liberals, opponents of the war, members of the reality-based community -- by elbowing them aside to embrace their opponents instead.

Well, exactly. Ironically, Huckabee points out exactly why it's troubling to those that Warren has likened to pedophiles: he's one of the most influential spiritual leaders in the county...sending out a message of intolerance. But for fellow intolerant Huckabee, that's a tremendous message on the part of Barack Obama.