How low can you go?

Okay, folks, it’s officially now THE COLD THAT WOULD NOT DIE.

If it weren’t for VH-1’s America’s Next Top Model marathon and TiVo, I don’t know how I would’ve made it through last week without joining Britney in her San Fernando Valley Fortress of Insaneitude.

Several nights ago, for instance, as I was contemplating suicide via a toxic cocktail of TheraFlu, Ricola, and Black Russians, suddenly there was Tiffany from ANTM Cycle 4, donning a “Cancer the Crab” get-up for a Zodiacal calendar shoot.

The judges proclaimed her “fierce.”

Spooney and I proclaimed her “unintentionally hilarious.”

I nearly wet myself, I laughed so hard. And then I hacked up a lung.

But I stall. You can sense I’m stalling, can’t you?

RE: Iowa.

Speaking of unintentionally hilarious, the Republicans elected Huckabee, who is so not ready for prime time, but is otherwise pretty much the white trash version of George Bush III. While Governor of Arkansas, he vowed to “take this nation back for Christ.” The sermons from his days as a Baptist minister would no doubt reveal other disturbing aspirations, but he has arranged for all records of those to be destroyed. Sound familiar?

All in all, par for the Republican course.

On the Democratic side, in Iowa Hillary Clinton saw her “nothing radical or innovative about me!” strategy come to fruition when the only group of voters she succeeded in capturing were those over 65!

Think about it. Scary bitch Hillary, the woman who was, according to the vast right wing conspiracy, the Lady Macbeth behind every one of Bill’s crazy liberal America-killing initiatives, is now the queen of the Democratic Bible Belt AARP set. To which I can only say, “be careful what you wish for, Hils.”

Regarding my favorite candidate, I am hopeful that the media doesn’t finish him before he’s finished. And if you haven’t seen or heard Edwards’s Iowa concession speech, you really should watch it.

He’s the only one who is talking about what is really wrong with this country, which is that we are completely controlled by corporate interests. In everything from Iraq, to poverty, to bad schools, to criminally inadequate health care, it is all owing to corporations ruling our government.

No, it’s not a snappy new message about hope and compromise and working together. It’s about basic Democratic politics. It’s about the reason why we are Democrats instead of Republicans. Call it old school, if you will. But maybe it’s time we rock it old school up in this foundering, lost old mug of a country of ours.

And if you doubt the direction in which the last seven years have taken us, courtesy our Oilman- and VP Oilman-in-chief, let me remind you that in December of 2000, when five members of the Supreme Court betrayed everything that they were entrusted to stand up for, the average gas price per gallon in the US was $1.65.

It seems like a dream now, doesn’t it?

And so it goes in New Hampshire, where independent voters likely to vote Republican are expressing an interest in either McCain or Huckabee, because they’re the “sane” ones.

Wow. With standards that low, they should start a limbo contest.