Neato.

A few years ago, there weren’t too many pundits who would have predicted that Arnold would be an opening act for Laura Bush at the Republican Convention (hopefully she won’t mind that at the time of her address the podium may still have the faint smell of ‘roids, body oil, elevator shoes and group sex). This is like Ron Jeremy opening for a Christian rock band.

So here is the Governor Arnold drinking game.

- Every time he says a line from a movie: drink

- Every time he makes a joke about his accent: drink

- Every time he says the word girly: drink

- Every time he using the suffix inator: drink

- Every time Arnold snorts coke off of the ass of a Hollywood starlet : drink

- Every time you allow yourself to really think about the fact that this guy is a governor and is speaking in primetime at a political convention: drink

Now this is just the game for the general public. For residents of California, the word drink should be replaced with the words move to Arizona, Nevada or Oregon.

And if you’re Gray Davis, you should probably start drinking now.

President Bush has his bearings back (after being understandably flustered by sitting in such close proximity to Matt Lauer’s hair) and is once again certain of victory in the war on terror.

“We meet today at a time of war for our country; a war we did not start, yet one that we will win.” (Technically this isn’t quite right. We sort of did start the war in Iraq, no? I mean there were all those bombs and stuff).

Has politics ever been more pathetic than it has in the last few weeks? Between the swift boat nonsense and the childish debate over “winning” the war on terror, we are reminded so clearly that a new and more serious era doesn’t necessarily mean a new and more serious political discussion.

So for the first time in a long time, President Bush made a reasonable and realistic comment on the ridiculously named war on terror. When asked about winning the war on terror, he explained:

“I don’t think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world.”

(He should have answered: “It will not be officially won as long as we can keep selling it to win elections!”)

So, of course, the Dems blasted away at Bush. But not for making the stupid assertions over the past few years. Instead they pretend, as John Edwards repeated throughout the day, that the notion that we can’t win the war on terror is “dead wrong.”

That strategy is dead wrong. No thinking person believes we can ever totally win a war on something like terrorism. Will there be a day when the last suicide bomber lays down his explosives-belt?

Of course not. Calling it a war on terror is stupid. The three years of tough talk and dumb claims have been stupid. And jumping in and saying we can “win” a war on terror just because W shifted his talking points is a waste of time and comes off as desperate counterpunching.

Don’t get me wrong. The White House reaction to all this has been even more pathetic as they’ve tried to nuance the President’s statement. White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett began his lengthy dissertation on what W really meant by explaining to Ted Koppel that, “The President was being interviewed on a moving bus.”

In that case, let’s put the Oval Office on wheels. Maybe he’ll make sense more often.

Rudy started out his speech in a grand and grandiose manner. He then drifted into the fear mongering, the spreading of distortions and the petty attacks that longtime New Yorkers have come to know and love.