To fully grasp the allure of Barack Obama -- Democrat from Illinois and media sensation -- it helps to start with his two fellow senators from neighboring Indiana.

In 1996, Richard Lugar ran for president as a brainy, issue-oriented moderate and all around decent guy. He said back then that the voters had tired of the mud-throwing and cheap sound bites in Washington. "If they really want shouters and screamers," the dark-suited Lugar said, "then they'll vote for someone else."

Lugar lost the Republican nomination to Bob Dole, who then lost the election to Bill Clinton.

Indiana's junior senator, Democrat Evan Bayh, recently visited New Hampshire to weigh his prospects for a 2008 presidential run. He was flattened by crowds running to see Obama, and dropped out.

What was Obama saying that other centrists would not have? Absolutely nothing.

Obama talked about ending the nastiness in Washington and taking personal responsibility, and that government can't solve all problems -- platitudes emptied of all controversy. If anything, his colleagues from Indiana would surely have offered more exciting commentary.

Competition has been fierce for the fifteenth annual P.U.-litzer Prizes.

Many can plausibly lay claim to stinky media performances, but only a few can win a P.U.-litzer. As the judges for this un-coveted award, Jeff Cohen and I have deliberated with due care. (Jeff is the founder of the media watch group FAIR and author of the superb new book “Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media.”)

And now, the winners of the P.U.-litzer Prizes for 2006:

* “FACT-FREE TRADE” AWARD -- New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman

In a press corps prone to cheer on corporate-drafted trade agreements as the key to peace and plenty in the world, no cheerleader is more fervent than Tom Friedman. During a CNBC interview with Tim Russert in July, Friedman confessed: “I was speaking out in Minnesota -- my hometown, in fact -- and a guy stood up in the audience, said, ‘Mr. Friedman, is there any free trade agreement you’d oppose?’ I said, ‘No, absolutely not.’ I said, ‘You know what, sir? I wrote a column supporting the CAFTA, the Caribbean Free Trade initiative. I didn’t even know what was in it. I

"If somebody proposes that additional troops be sent, if I was still chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, my first question . . . is what mission is it these troops are supposed to accomplish?"

We've been in Iraq how long? Spilled how much blood? Squandered how much treasure? Spread how much toxic waste? Alienated how much of the planet? And even the former secretary of state, who lent his name and dignity to the trumped-up intelligence that made this war possible, doesn't know why we're there.

". . . And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night."

A strain of humanity has been crying out against the cosmic foolishness of war, articulately and futilely, for as long as there have been art and poetry, with the cries increasing in volume and intensity in recent centuries (e.g., Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach," above, written in 1851) - yet we keep waging slaughter on the same tired, transparent pretexts, mobilizing for short-term advantages and trapping the future in the aftermath.

With the November elections, the voters gave a clear mandate for the new Democratic Congress to end the war in Iraq. We hoped our newly elected officials would listen to the people, but they're already backsliding. We were appalled to hear Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, on Sunday's ABC show "This Week," say he would support a "short-term" increase of U.S. troops in Iraq. AN INCREASE IN TROOPS? What is Harry thinking? The voters didn't put his party in power to escalate this war, but the end it! Harry's website may be named GiveEmHellHarry.com, but now it's time for us to give him hell for buckling so quickly to Bush's war machine. Please take a moment out of your busy holiday schedule to call, email or FAX Harry Reid and tell him this just isn't acceptable.

Call: 202-224-2158 -- Democratic Leadership Office in DC (If that doesn’t work call his scheduler: 202-224-7003)
Email: Susan_McCue@reid.senate.gov (chief of staff)
Fax: 202-224-7327 -- DC Office

This last Sunday, Harry Reid, the incoming Democratic majority leader in the U.S. Senate, went on ABC's Sunday morning show and declared that a hike in U.S. troops in Iraq is OK with him. Here's the evolution of the Democrats' war platform since Nov. 7, 2006, the day the voters presented a clear mandate: "End the war! Get out of Iraq!" and took the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives away from the Republicans.