“The world has gone mad today/And good’s bad today/And black’s white today/And day’s night today...” - “Anything Goes” by Cole Porter

America elects a new president within months, but last week, all was quiet on the presidential front. While Barrack Obama vacationed in Hawaii, John McCain continued trotting out less than exciting campaign stop speeches.

The biggest presidential sweepstakes surprise came when Obama and the Democrat Party allowed Hillary Clinton to be placed on the ballot at the upcoming Democratic convention in Denver. Sen. Clinton has agreed to tell her delegates and those who support her to vote for Obama, and Obama says putting Hillary on the ballot is good for party unity and honors her historic campaign.This is a Democrat convention, and Sen. Clinton’s delegates and supporters are free to vote for her if they chose and to try and sway others to do the same.

I’m betting the party’s move will play out as expected and the Democrats will leave Denver one  big, happy, tsunami tidal wave of political power. If something more is afoot, the clues will lie in Sen. Clinton’s address to the convention on its second night. At a Democratic convention, anything goes.

John McCain keeps comparing himself to Harry Truman as the one who can pull off a big upset. A McCain MacMiracle would be more likely if he did not have to debate ObamaMac. Unfortunately for the presumptive Republican nominee, throwing Obama a knockout punch is one of the few chances he has to win the election.

The presidential race and all domestic issues were over shadowed on the front pages of newspapers last week by a perfect storm of international events, including the Olympic games in China, the Russian invasion of Georgia brazenly planned to coincide with the games, and the much increased likelihood of a worldwide recession starting in the western kingpin economies of Europe, Japan, the United Kingdom and the U.S.

Americans, who normally have small tolerance for international news, received a force fed dose of world politics they could hardly escape. That news showed just how desperate America is for new leadership in the White House as President Bush hobnobbed at the Olympics and played diplomat while the conflict in Georgia escalated and the U.S. did nothing to help an overwhelmed democratic nation with strong ties to the Western world.

Hopefully, the next president, a non-neoconservative no matter who is elected, will bring back some of nation’s lost respect on the world front by showing that Americans can lead without going to war. It might mean slapping the Russians around a bit on the diplomatic front to show strong American disapproval of the invasion of Georgia. Start by denying Visas to Russians in the Putin government, then casually suggest that Americans lay off the caviar and explore varieties of American and European vodkas, then proceed from there based on the temperment of the new president.

Starting with the Democratic convention, attention will shift back to American politics and the state of the nation. From then until Nov. 4, things will be far from quiet, and anything goes.