Like most of us, I've been following a great deal of the presidential "coverage," and like most fervent supporters of Barack Obama, I am starting to have that sinking feeling.  This has little to do with the candidate, or even his campaign, and a lot to do with what Obama's called "the silliness."  Philip Roth once said that when he was in graduate school in the early 50s he assumed that the score would be University of Chicago 22, Popular Culture 6.  The most serious reason for queasiness is that I assumed, well, serious reason could squeak out a victory this time.

What's Obama's problem? Bill Maher--whom MSNBC rolled out for the opening of its convention coverage, and then seems to have taken out back and shot--caught the mood (or, at least, mine) when he remarked that, with every election, the talk seems to be getting dumber, and the country will no doubt get the leaders it deserves. Maher then threw a left hook at Mormonism, as he has at all religions (Mitt Romney came up and, lucky for Jews, not Joe Lieberman) which prompted Chris Matthews to reassure his viewers that he--or was it the management of MSNBC?--considered Mormons "a great religion," an endorsement that seemed in tone and trenchancy about right for a Chevy, and was really (Maher no doubt thought) more of the disease that presumes itself the cure.

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While eyes are on Denver, Secretary Rice has slipped into Jerusalem for the seventh time since November, in an apparent effort to advance an Israeli-Palestinian peace. The goal is a so-called "shelf agreement," which would sketch out the broad lines of a comprehensive treaty (something diplomats and lawyers could presumably finish up).

Rice, writes Haaretz's Aluf Benn, "will have to pave the way between the contradictory viewpoints of her hosts in Jerusalem." It would be truer to say that she has to choose between her hosts' contradictory viewpoints about Jerusalem. For--make no mistake--Jerusalem is the problem, and no amount of patient mediation can advance what an arbitrator's power must. Other core issues, like refugees and territory, are not simple, but they are actually more or less dependent on a larger conundrum, which "Jerusalem" subsumes. Saying that the only problem left for the diplomats is Jerusalem is like saying that the only problem left for a divorcing couple is custody of the children.

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