Yesterday, monotonist Ben Stein offered Easter economic reassurance on the CBS Morning News and called for regulation of hedge funds in The New York Times. Ceding that the markets, mortgages, bonds, and short-term securities are in crisis, Stein claimed that the "real-world economy is not bad." The real world begs to differ, and some have said that the buck doesn't stop with hedge funds, but that the current crisis can be traced to Reagan, Bush, and years of wealth consolidation among the richest few.  

This morning Bill Richardson ended his Hamlet-like agony over whom to endorse and jumped eagerly behind Barack Obama. Why now, after weeks of mud-slinging and beard-growing? For Richardson, as for me, Obama's speech in Philadelphia on Tuesday sealed the deal. Richardson picked up on what the press has been willfully ignoring: in that speech from the National Constitution Center Obama provided a starting point for racial healing. And for so much else.