A Factoid and a Prediction

Hillary Clinton, looking relaxed, arrived at the Grand Hyatt and took the stage at ten after nine a.m. Charlie Rangel, filling time while she was delayed, had eventually veered off on an impassioned speech on how history would remember the wars. "During this horrible period in this nation's history, what were we doing?" he asked. "What did we say? Did we protest?"

Mrs. Clinton had been delayed by traffic. She said she'd been flipping through the paper over the weekend and had found something she wouldn't normally read. She said she had learned that "Mercury is in retrograde, whatever that means" and had been thinking of that as her little caravan had inched along.

She thanked Mr. Rangel for filling the ballroom's dead air. "I love Charlie Rangel," she said. "I'll say it. I'm sure I'll be on the front of some tabloid tomorrow."

-- Choire Sicha