Hi, everyone. It's good to be back. Let's get right into it…

And, of course, by "it" I mean the super-mega "reality" show known as the U.S. presidential nomination process, which elicits a super-mega "WTF" from the rest of the world. We all know the presidential election campaign is pretty much a 48-month event, most of it taken up by the nomination process, but today at least that process begins in earnest with the Iowa caucus(es), another super-mega "WTF" thing that makes no sense whatsoever.

So brace yourselves for a whole lotta BS today from everyone involved, from the candidates themselves, from the spinners and counter-spinners who run and speak for the campaigns, and especially from the geniuses of the professional commentariat who will grace us with their sensationalist claptrap about the meaning of it all. This BS will, of course, be wrong, and so it will continue, ad absurdum, ad infinitium>/i>, yadda yadda yadda… But at least there are some smart things to read (even if you disagree with them), like…

Prairie Weather: The appeal of Bernie Sanders.

The Mahablog: The pragmatism of Hillary Clinton.

P.M. Carpenter: Pragmatism vs. idealism among Democrats.

Booman Tribune: The complete and utter collapse of the House of Bush.

Outside the Beltway: The weird social conservative appeal of Donald Trump.

Round-up by Michael J.W. Stickings of The Reaction. (Twitter: @mjwstickings.) I'll be here all week.

Send requests and suggestions to mbru@crooksandliars.com (with "For MBRU" in the subject line).