Tomorrow, CBS will be broadcasting the "World Series of Video Games," marking the first time video game play will show up on network TV.

Interesting idea, but, really, watching other people play video games is not exactly the most fun thing you can do. And then there are the games -- air guitar? Boxing?

No Halo. I dunno...I'd rather see stuff get blown up.

Steve over at TPM notes, now that "progressive" is all warm and fuzzy for everyone, conservatives have launched their assault on the term, attempting to do what they previously did to the word "liberal."

Which circles us back to Hillary Clinton at the last debate, which some of us discussed here earlier, and how she ran hard from the L word. Looking at the poll numbers, perhaps that was a good choice. But the conservatives are going to tear down whatever we call ourselves.

Maybe it's a marketing question -- is it easier to rebuild a brand than forge a new one?

I'm no Rocket Scientist, but I'm pretty sure that flying a spaceship drunk is probably one of the stupidest things you can do.

I mean, wouldn't you want to go outside and have a smoke?

Here, Tom asks a good question: Why didn't the recent YouTube debate have any questions about impeachment?

I couldn't tell you. CNN picked the questions, and that was a major complaint about the debates -- the "wisdom of the (YouTube) crowds" weren't used.

In response to CNN's editorial control, a site called CommunityCounts created a debate mashup, that allowed people to vote on the best YouTube questions that were submitted.

The number one question?

"Is the impeachment of George W. Bush necessary to prevent future Presidents from abusing their power?"

This should go well. McClatchy reports on some big questions about the Bush Administration's strategy for going after al-Qaeda in Pakistan. The plan? Arm a local paramilitary group called the Frontier Corps.

The problem?

Corps members have been reluctant to fight the militants because they have ethnic, tribal and family ties to the Islamists, and a former senior U.S. commander who served in Afghanistan said some members have provided covering fire for Taliban fighters crossing the border into Afghanistan. There also are fears that some corps members could turn their U.S.-supplied equipment over to militants. [emphasis mine...]

Isn't it enough we're getting killed by the same people we train and supply in one war? Do we need to do that somewhere else?

Here's more:

...Some U.S. officers on the Afghan side of the border "jokingly refer to the Pakistan military defending them against the Frontier Corps," said the former U.S. commander. "The people who are in the Frontier Corps have a stronger loyalty to the tribes and family members than they do to central authority."

"The battle lines are drawn in such a way (that) anyone who is fighting for Musharraf is considered fighting for the United States," Abbas said.

Perfect.

I know President Bush has explained to us the "basic facts" about Al Qaeda In Iraq. But can someone please ask him, if Al Qaeda In Iraq is so closely tied to Al Qaeda, why, then, are we in Iraq fighting Al Qaeda In Iraq, instead of just actually fighting Al Qaeda?

And when he says that "al Qaida in Iraq did not exist until the U.S. invasion," can someone please ask him how, then, can they be "part of the same enemy that attacked us" on 9/11? It seems to defy physics.

And when the President says, "The facts are that al Qaida terrorists killed Americans on 9/11, they're fighting us in Iraq and across the world, and they are plotting to kill Americans here at home again," can someone please ask him if his previous statements about "fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here" were all just bullshit?

Is it me, or did Mike Gravel last night come across as, I don't know...charming? And his campaign video was second best, next to the Edwards video, which I thought was not only smart, but very effective.

Obama, on the other hand, continues to seem to get more and more scripted with every debate -- certainly not a good trend for someone offering to bring "change" to our politics. I'm not sure what to make of that...

Edwards and Clinton were solid. Biden, too.

But...Gravel???