The Ana Log

By Ana Marie Cox

NOT SO MUCH CHARACTERS AS CARICATURES President Bush celebrates National Character Counts Week by headlining fund raisers for two of the G.O.P.'s biggest characters: macaca-tastic, pork-eating, sorta-Jewish Senator George Allen and Representative Don Sherwood, who has admitted a five-year extramarital affair with a woman who later accused him of choking her. He said it was just a back rub. Voters, too, aren't sure whether they're being strangled or massaged.

AND WITH KARL ROVE AS GOLLUM Senator Rick Santorum compares Iraq to the battle for Middle-earth in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, noting that "as the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else...I want to keep it on Iraq. I don't want the Eye to come back here to the U.S." Hey, it's better than comparing Iraq to Vietnam! At least the hobbits won.

WE cH- BARACK The cover of TIME, Oprah, the morning talk shows, conservative columnist David Brooks--the media have a huge mancrush on the smooth, stylish but somewhat inexperienced Senator Barack Obama. Which bodes well if we add swimsuit and talent categories to the presidential contest.

INSERT EMOTICON FOR "EWWWW" HERE The priest who had his own inappropriate relationship with the congressional-page-stalking Mark Foley when Foley was a teen comes forward. Anthony Mercieca says he did NOT have sexual relations with that man, just some skinny-dipping and nude saunas: "I don't know what I did to him." Of course, that's why you have to save the chat log.