Lynn Sweet predicts Barack Obama will run for President in 2008. Strangely enough, the first thought that ran through my head when I read Sweet's article was, "this is going to drive John Kass nuts."

As some of you may know, Kass is the extremely talented, prolific, and (lone) conservative columnist for the Chicago Tribune. He's also one of the only columnists in the country - if not the only one - who hasn't completely lost his faculties and fallen down prostrate before Obama over the last couple of years - and if Obama does run for President that'll make Kass one of the country's most important columnists as well.

Here's what Kass wrote about Obama back on November 2, the day after a Chicago Tribune investigation revealed that Obama got a killer deal on some real estate in Chicago done in partnership with Tony Rezko, Governor Rod Blagojevich's rainmaker pal who was recently indicted on charges of corruption:

The Tribune story serves notice to all the national columnists, editorial writers and political reporters who've been genuflecting before their Obama icons. He might not walk on water after all.

So they should stop with the gooey public relations and start reporting before Obamaniacs seed Iowa's presidential cornfields this spring.

Obama isn't a bad fellow. I like him. He knows he's being used by some Democrats who see him as a pretty black candidate first rather than a man and as some empty vessel without a record into which they pour their ambition. There's racism in that, although they can't see it and probably never will.

They see Obama as some horse to ride into the 2008 presidential elections, a horse that's not named Hillary. [snip]

Some pundits will ignore the Tribune report because it doesn't fit the gauzy public relations narrative they've told so often that they've hypnotized themselves. Besides, they're busy helping Sen. John Kerry take his loafer out of his mouth.

Others will engage in fantastic verbal contortions, suggesting Obama is a victim of cynical reporters, a victim of the cunning Tony Rezko. This would suggest Obama is far too naive to become president, so they'll contort some more. Such gymnastics promise to be hilarious.

The fact is the Obamas and the Rezkos bought property in a fashionable South Side neighborhood next to each other on the same day, from the same lot, and the Obamas came out the winners.

I had the pleasure of meeting Kass for the first time just a few days after he wrote this column, and we talked about the Democrats' infatuation with Obama, a man few in the country know anything about.

Consider just how meteoric Obama's rise has been. In 2000, he lost badly to Bobby Rush in the Democratic primary in Illinois 1st Congressional District. Four years later, with only about a month left in the 2004 Democratic Senate primary, Obama was running tied with Dan Hynes for second place, ten points behind gazillionaire Blair Hull - until the frontrunner's campaign imploded in mid-to-late February amid revelations his wife had filed a restraining order against him for abuse (I think he admitted kicking her in the shin during a spat, if I recall).

Barring that last minute turn of events, Obama would still be an Illinois State Senator and two-time loser for higher office that no one in the country had ever heard of.

Instead, Obama won the primary in March and went on to give an excellent keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in August. Just like that, before he'd even officially been elected to the Senate, Obama became an overnight sensation and suddenly morphed into presidential material among Democrats and the media.

And so here we are. I don't know if Obama is going to run or whether he's presidential material or not. But as history has repeatedly shown, presidential politics is very much about timing and about being the person who rises to meet the opportunity of the moment. 2008 could very well be such a moment for Obama. Then again, maybe not.

Michael Barone runs down a list of recent unforced errors in Senate races by the GOP - and the Dems.

In his RCP column today, Jed Babbin takes a look at the ongoing investigation involving BAE Systems, a British defense manufacturer, and Saudi Arabia. It seems BAE set up a "slush fund" of some 60 million-plus pounds to bribe Saudi officials into continuing to contract for arms purchases. That money was allegedly channeled through Wafic Said, a Syrian-born Brit and friend to Saudi Princes who has subsequently risen to become one of the Britain's wealthiest men.

As Babbin notes, the investigation has imperiled a twenty-billion pound contract (close to $40 billion) for 72 Typhoon fighter jets. Executives at BAE and the labor unions wants the probe to end immediately, for fear that the Saudis will pull the contract and give it to the French.

But yesterday the Guardian reported a new breakthrough in the investigation: the discovery of a Swiss bank account controlled by Said which may show direct payments to Saudi officials. The British government outlawed such payments in 2002.

From today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Dayna Klein had only her unborn baby in mind when she instinctively covered her belly after a gunman stormed a Seattle Jewish center last summer.

Tuesday, she finally got to meet the son she saved.

Klein, who survived the rampage July 28 at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle that killed a colleague, gave birth to Charley Paz Klein at a Seattle hospital Tuesday night, her spokesman, Howard Bragman, said. The baby weighed 5 pounds, 12 ounces. [snip]

When the gunman pointed his weapon at her and squeezed the trigger, Klein swung her left hand over her belly to protect her fetus. A bullet went through her arm and grazed her thigh before lodging in the carpet.

"It was a split second that I was able to think. I don't know how, but I was," she told the Seattle P-I after the shootings. "The only thing that occurred to me was, how I was going to save my baby? That was my one shot, my one chance of saving my baby."

Even as she was wounded and bleeding, Klein managed to crawl to her desk and call 911. When the shooter pointed his gun to her head, she handed the phone to him and persuaded him to talk to the police dispatcher. He eventually put his gun down and gave up.

Mary Ann Sieghart wins the award for the intro to her takedown of London Mayor "Red" Ken Livingstone:

There are quite a few useful rules of thumb in life. If something seems too good to be true, it almost certainly is too good to be true. If a book is still boring after 100 pages, it's not going to improve. And if Ken Livingstone violently disapproves of someone, the chances are that they are an admirable person.

Read the rest.

George Will has fired off a column ripping Jim Webb over his widely reported exchange with President Bush and for his populist rant in the Wall St. Journal last week. Will calls Webb a "pompous poseur and an abuser of the English language" - among other things - in a fairly withering assault from start to finish. The column is embargoed until midnight tonight (Eastern), but you can catch it on RCP starting at 12:01.

If you haven't already checked out Ethan Wallison's recollections of Nancy Pelosi , I strongly suggest you find five minutes and give it a read.

In addition to the posts on Wes Clark and John Kerry below, here's more of the latest on 2008:

The Hotline is reporting Bill Frist will announce at 1pm Eastern today that he won't be running for President.

The Boston Globe reports Mitt Romney is planning to set up his '08 HQ in Boston's North End. And elentless Romney booster Kathryn Jean-Lopez points out Mitt's latest "gets."

The Giuliani Blog speculates excitedly over news that California and Florida might move up their primaries.

It only seems like John Edwards lives in Iowa.

Eye on 08 looks at who has the highest favorite son (or daughter, as the case may be) ratings.

At the HuffPo, Stephen Kaus writes an amusing open letter to John Kerry begging him not to run again in '08:

Dear Senator Kerry:

I write as a supporter of yours in 2004, from way before the convention, to suggest that you do yourself a favor and announce now that you are not running in 2008 and will devote your full efforts to helping the Democrats in the U.S. Senate. Ironically, this may be your best bet to be considered Presidential material again some day.

They say that when you are in a hole you should first stop digging. If you keep running for President, please write me from China.

Kaus's final piece of advice to Kerry: " Oh, and don't appear in public doing effete sports that require spandex or harnesses."

Wes Clark says if he runs for President again in 2008, he won't make the same mistake of getting off to a late start.