Enough Already.

After months of endless speculation, petty bickering, and contrived media circuses, the Democratic presidential primary is starting to make me sad. It's not that I'm particularly concerned about the amount of damage the messy infighting will have on the party. In fact, the sight of the two remaining Democratic gladiators disemboweling each other is the only thing heartening about the current political situation.

No, the problem is much deeper than that. When you get right down to it, the Democratic race just isn't fun any more.

Maybe it has to do with the lack of real news coming from the field. Since the March 11th Mississippi primary, no one has cast a single vote for either candidate. Essentially, the race has become a stagnant puddle of meaningless speculation.

Of course, there have been a few interesting scandals in the meantime, but they've only served as small breaks in the overall tedium. By now, the shock of Obama's Pastorgate has all but faded, Bosniagate is a memory as dim as Hillary's own, and the goldfish-like minds of American voters have returned to a moribund state of equilibrium. Now it seems that the only thing left to do is wait for the scandal reruns of the general election. Meh.

And please, don't even try to give me that stuff about the Pennsylvania primary. If Hillary wins that thing, it doesn't change anything. If she loses, it probably won't change anything either. Hillary is the female, non-pastor Huckabee of the Democrats. Who cares if it becomes statistically impossible to win? That's what miracles are for!

When Obama compared the race to a movie that's gone on for too long, Hillary retorted that she likes long movies. I like long movies too -- but only long movies that happen to be entertaining. Right now, this race is kind of like "Gods and Generals": a slow, preachy, overwrought clunker that leaves you with the terrible feeling that several irreplaceable hours of your life have been stolen forever. No offense to people who actually liked that movie.

As a patriotic American, I don't demand honest political contests, or decent candidates. But when politics ceases to be even slightly amusing, I feel that I have the sacred duty to demand change.

The race needs to end immediately. Howard Dean can decide how to work it out; it doesn't matter how he does it:

Rock-paper-scissors.
Coin-toss.
Arm-wrestling.
Thumb-wrestling.
Bloody-battle-to-the-death.

It's all good.

Please Howard, just make something happen. If you can't end the race, at least make a spectacle of yourself in public. You know, something like attacking a homeless person, or biting off a reporter's ear. Again, your choice. You may never achieve your dream of becoming the president, but you can save the American public from boredom. Sure, it's not much, but it should give you an edge over Jimmy Carter.

Lousy peanut farmer.