History has taught us that when John Kennedy and Richard Nixon squared off in their presidential debate, Nixon actually won the debate but Kennedy looked better.   Seemed JFK understood the power of TV and looking good on camera and dispatched his team to get some Max Factor pancake make-up.  While he didn't beat Nixon in terms of substance, he sure looked like a movie star.

So what's up with Barack Obama's make-up Friday night?

I just did a Google search to see if anyone is writing about the odd, decidedly darker skin tone that Sen. Obama seemed to possess Friday night.  Naturally, I found nothing.  After all, in a presidential race that is tinged with race, heaven forbid anyone should make an observation about the skin tone of the black candidate.

But it would be an honest observation.  Sen. Obama  had a skin color that looked, well, weird.   It was an odd combination of a darker tone and even an orange-ish tint that made him look peculiar.

I'm no conspiracy theorist.  But in an era with top-notch advisors and expert technology, could a good make-up artist be that hard for Sen. Obama to find?

Or was that by design?

I have never been prouder of John McCain.

This economic crisis puts the leadership qualities of both Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama on full display for all the world to see.

John McCain made a decision to do his job.  After all, like Obama, he is a sitting U.S. Senator.    McCain announced that he's suspending his campaign, heading to Washington and doing everything he can to help get this economic calamity fixed.

Sen. Obama wants to put on the make-up and and smile pretty for the TV cameras in Oxford, Mississippi, site of tomorrow night's scheduled debate.

What a dramatic difference between these two men.   John McCain is a natural leader, Barack Obama is a wanna-be.

Obama isn't even exactly sure when the next president's duties begin.  Last night, he referenced the fact that the next commander-in-chief will be "making decisions" in "about 40 days."

Someone needs to get him a copy of the Constitution.   News flash, Sen. Obama:  the next president doesn't go to work until January.

But in any event, it is gratifying to see John McCain shine like this.   God forbid he backs down and winds up at the debate Friday night.   That would be a disaster.

Let Obama continue to play politics, fiddling while Wall Street burns.  The American people are getting a rare look at the stark contrast between these two men.

Bravo, Sen. McCain.   You have trumped your opponent simply by insisting on putting America first and doing the job you were elected to do.

That's what a leader does.

Ordinarily, I would never recommend MSNBC viewing to anyone. After all, when I'm not hosting my radio show or writing for Townhall.com, I work at Fox News Channel as a contributor.

She did it. Gov. Palin did everything she needed to do tonight from the podium of the Xcel Center here in St. Paul.

Everyone likes to talk about "the latest buzz" at an event like this week's GOP Convention here in St. Paul. Obviously, the buzz has been over the revelation that Sarah Palin's 17 year old daughter is pregnant.

Dear Keith Olbermann:

I am feeling very smug today.   It turns out that I may be one of the brilliant manipulators of Democrats on the airwaves today.

Rush Limbaugh, one of my heroes, started a movement called, "Operation Chaos."   The concept is to encourage Republicans to vote for Hillary in the primaries in order to keep the Democrats in total tatters and chaos as they fail to settle on one candidate or the other.

Yesterday, Hillary clobbered Obama in the Keystone State.   Operation Chaos is working like a finely-tuned machine.

And as a proud foot soldier in the Operation Chaos movement, I played a significant role yesterday.

You may recall that I predicted an Obama victory yesterday in Pennsylvania.  Naturally, I didn't believe he would win.  But I wanted to trick Democrats in Pennsylvania into thinking that I did.  I wanted to send them into the voting booths and vote for Hillary just to prove me wrong.

In proving me wrong, I was right.  It worked.  Now, Hillary stays in the fight, maybe long enough to make it all the way to the convention and possibly twist the arms of super-delegates into picking her over Obama.  If that happens, you'll see the Democrat Party go up in smoke like a giant mushroom cloud.

I'm proud of the role I played in Operation Chaos. 

Thanks, Rush.

Ok, I've got a pretty decenty track record in predicting primary victories.   While many were expecting Sen. Barack Obama to beat Sen. Clinton in Texas, I boldly (well, maybe not boldly) predicted Clinton would win, largely due to the "chaos" factor (Republicans crossing over and voting for Hillary in order to keep the Democrat Party in "chaos".   

I was right.

And so with that cocky attitude, I will now predict that Obama is going to surprise everyone and win in Pennsylvania today.

Even though the polls are predicting a fairly close Hillary victory, Keystone State voters are a peculiar bunch.  Obama is riding an unbelievable tidal wave of momentum and I just do not believe Hillary can stop him.  Many pundits/pollsters are now pretty openly referring to her in the political past tense.   A popular YouTube video is making the rounds affirming that it is mathematically impossible for Hillary to obtain enough delegates to get the nomination.  And Democrats are realizing that if they are to have any chance of winning the White House, the "chaos" has to stop.

Make a note.  Primary Day in Pennsylvania, April 22, 2008.   7:15 in the morning.    Gallagher predicts an Obama victory.

As always, if I'm right, feel free to congratulate me tomorrow.

If I'm wrong, we will never talk about this again.

Dear Sen. Obama,

I thought it was pretty fascinating how you threw radio host Don Imus under the wheels of the bus by promising never to re-appear on his radio show after his "nappy-headed ho's" comment got him fired from his radio gig.

Now that liberal radio host Randi Rhodes has been suspended for her filthy tirade against Sen. Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro, will you make the same pledge about HER radio show?

Has anyone asked you yet? 

Randi Rhodes is one of the true "stars" of Air America.  While others have come and gone, she has been a mainstay of the so-called liberal talk radio network.   When she appeared before a gathering in San Francisco, she let loose with quite the little tirade about Hillary.   Your supporter, Sen. Obama, called Hillary "a f***ing whore" --- repeatedly -- and said the same about Hillary supporter Geraldine Ferraro.

I'm curious, Sen. Obama:  is "f***ing whore" as bad as "nappy headed ho's?"  When one of your filthy sycophants like her says stuff like this, will you be sure to promise to never appear on her radio show again?    

Or will that get you in trouble with your rabid base?

MG 

To all my fellow conservatives, I have a six-word warning before you get too excited or satisfied over Eliot Spitzer's downfall:  Mark-Foley-Larry-Craig-David-Vitter.

There's actually nothing political about a man's decision to ruin his life, destroy his family, and obliterate his reputation the way Spitzer has done.  And while he had very few fans -- I'm one of many who despised the way he attacked corporate executives for their compensation and couldn't believe his attempts to give driver's licenses to illegals, among other things -- the anguished look on his wife's face should be a reminder that there are some very real victims in this tale.

It has been remarkable to hear some like-minded callers to my radio show today try and justify the various trysts committed by Republicans while justifiably condemning Spitzer's alliance with prostitutes.   Callers have said things like, "Well, Mark Foley didn't get arrested for anything" (as if writing dirty emails to young boys is okay); "David Vitter didn't get arrested for being on the D.C. Madame's phone list" (the statute of limitations had run out); "Larry Craig didn't actually have sex with anyone in the restroom" (I'm actually speechless over that one).

Let's just let Spitzer get what's coming to him.  He'll fade away, as he should, and we'll move on.  But we'd better be careful over too much gloating.   Inappropriate sexual trysts aren't limited to Democrats.

As I brilliantly predicted, Hillary took Texas -- and Ohioans decided to go for her as well.   Throw in Rhode Island and you have a big night for Madame Hillary.

We should know better than to ever count out a Clinton in a campaign.

The lesson learned from her big night is that going negative, sadly, works.   Pundits say she really "found her sea legs" and her campaign "really hit its stride" the past few weeks.   Translation:  she decided to start playing hardball.   NAFTA, the empty Obama bromides, it was all on the table for her -- and it paid off handsomely.

Let's face it, watching the Democrats in total turmoil is fun for a righty like me.  Hopefully, Republicans who continue to whine and pout and fret about McCain's candidacy will be drowned out by common-sense Republicans who realize that while Sen. McCain might not have been our first choice, now he's the only choice.  No Republican worth his or her salt really wants to turn over the keys to the White House to a radical leftist.

So the wild ride continues.

I'm really a lousy prognosticator.  In fact, my track record suggests that I should really just keep my mouth shut, analyze election results and be satisfied to leave it at that.

I'm still in shock that my Dallas Cowboys didn't even make it to the Super Bowl, especially after my confident prediction that they would beat the Patriots in Arizona.  And then, while nursing my wounds, I declared, without hesitation, that New England would stomp the New York Giants.

Yeah, I'm not much of a fortune teller.  In sports OR politics.

But I just have this strong, strong hunch about the Texas primary.  And so I'm going to break my self-imposed (meaningless) rule and make a prediction:  Hillary Clinton will win the Texas primary by a whisker.

If I'm correct, I will frequently remind you of my political prowess and election-time genius.  If I'm wrong, I'll simply forget to mention it ever again.  As I said, my error-prone predictions would fill a sizable book.

But allow me to state my reasons:  first, a phenomenon known as crossover voting is happening in the Lone Star State.  When I went to early voting in a Tarrant County, Texas polling place last week, one of the poll workers told me that the Democrats were out-voting Republicans "better than two to one."  And he said that a whole bunch of Republicans were admitting to voting for Hillary in order to try and keep her in the race.

Secondly, there is great discontent in the Hispanic community with Sen. Obama.  As one Dallas-area Latina activist clumsily put it the other day, "Barack Obama has a problem of being Black."  She went on to explain that many Hispanic voters feel that black politicians have turned their back on the Hispanic community in years past.  And they are not forgetting it.

Combine these two conditions with the fairly rocky weekend that Obama had regarding his adviser's alleged comments to a Canadian official over  NAFTA and you might just have the formula for an upset victory (and let's face it, at this point in the Obama-mania hysteria, a Clinton win WOULD be an upset, right?).

Take it to the bank, it's Hillary by a Texas nose.  Feel free to congratulate me on Wednesday if I turn out to be right.

If I'm wrong, leave me alone.  We Republicans have enough headaches right now.

One of my guilty pleasures is enjoying the Oscars.  I wouldn't agree with 99% of the artists on display there, but as a pretty typical movie buff, I always get a kick out of the annual love-fest in Hollywood.

This year, not one single American actor won any of the acting awards.  I might be overreaching here, but does it make sense that there wasn't a single American actor in 2007 worthy of an Academy Award?

We frequently talk about our vanishing culture.   The English language, the customs, the American traditions, all slowly evaporating.

It seems to me that realizing that every single acting award at the Oscars went to foreign actors is a pretty compelling sign of the times...

So 6 big mortgage lenders -- Bank of America, Citigroup, Countrywide, JPMorgan Chase, Washington Mutual and Wells Fargo -- have announced efforts to help borrowers of all loans receive a "mortgage time-out."

These mortgage "pauses" should give every single hard-working, bill-paying American pause.  How did we come to this?   At what point did this proud and resilient country decide it was in our best interests to reward people who find themselves struggling with their bills?

I don't want to sound elitist.  God's been good to me, I make a decent living.  That wasn't always the case.  It seems like only yesterday when I was a kid just starting out in broadcasting making 10-12 thousand dollars a year so I could fulfill my dream to become a radio talk show host.  I was late on car payments, I was late in paying the rent.  At my lowest point, I was so late on my car payment that the guy from the finance company was threatening to come get the car and I borrowed a friend's car while he "hid" mine in his garage.  All these years later, I still get embarrassed just thinking about it.

So where was my "car payment time-out?"    I'm a nice guy, a good person.  Like many, I was driving a car that was over my means.  Instead of a beat-up junker, like I should have been driving, I wanted to have a nicer car and couldn't keep up with the payments on my 10 thousand dollar a year full-time salary.

I'll bet a lot of people would love to be rewarded by some kind of "pause" or "time-out" offering on just about anything.   How about a gas station time-out?  Or a utility pause?

All this talk about the mortgage companies being directed by the Bush Adminstration to try and bail out homeowners reminds me of one giant welfare nanny state.

It's total insanity.

So riddle me this, Batman:   how does MSNBC justify suspending that loose cannon of a political reporter, David Shuster, for asking if Chelsea Clinton is being "pimped out" by the Clinton campaign while completely ignorning the exact same phrase that slimeball Keith Olberman used in describing Gen. David Petraeus

Double standard, anyone?

When Petraeus was addressing Congress last year, the star of MSNBC, Olberman, had this to say about our military commander in Iraq:  "And in pimping General David Petraeus and in the violation of everything this country has been...against for 220 years....."

If "pimping" is such a horrific, suspendable term for the delicate flowers over at MSNBC, when does Olberman's suspension begin? 

And naturally, Hillary revels in playing the victim.   She fired off a letter to the president of NBC News, a sob story if there ever was one ("I became Chelsea's mother long before I ran for any office").

I'm not one of those who ever mocked Chelsea's appearance or took any cheap shots when she was a litltle girl in the White House, like some of my talk radio colleagues did.   But these days, Chelsea is an adult and by representing her mother's campaign, she's playing in the big leagues.

"Pimped out" is hardly a problem.