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The Nation magazine's Ari Melber and I go at it over Harry Reid's outrageous comments on the Senate floor on MSNBC. Check it out HERE.

Tonight President Obama goes to West Point to deliver a nationally televised address on Afghanistan.

I know the president is a busy man so I took the liberty of writing his speech.

Here is the speech he should deliver tonight

I also wrote for him another speech.

Here is the speech it would probably be wise for the president not to deliver tonight.

Guess who is also thinking about the 2012 presidential elections? Las Vegas. Or at least Sportsbook.com, which is based who knows where. We’ll just say Vegas.

You can go online right now and bet on who will be the Republican nominee in 2012, and who will be the president come inauguration day in January 2013.

And since Vegas is not in the business of losing money, the betting odds would presumably give us pretty good insight into who is in serious contention at this early point in time.

To win the Republican nomination, Sarah Palin has a slight edge over Mitt Romney with 7/2 odds. Romney’s odds stands at 4/1, immediately followed by former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee at 5/1 and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal at 6/1. Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty has odds of 10/1 to win the Republican nomination.

If you are a Joe the Plumber 2012 guy, no worries. Vegas has you covered. You can bet on him with 100/1 odds of moving into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Outside of Vegas, the Des Moines Register conducted a poll of Iowans in early November on the popularity in the state of certain possible 2012 Republican contenders. Mike Huckabee came out best with the highest favorability rating at 54 percent overall and 70 percent among Republicans. He was followed in the poll in overall favorability rating by Palin, Gingrich and Romney—though Palin’s unfavorability rating was higher than her favorability rating. Some of the other potential contenders in the poll, like Jindal, may have fared better had they been better known in the state.

Perhaps most significantly at this point, Sportsbook is offering bets at 6/5 that a Republican will win the Presidency in 2012 and 5/8 odds that a Democrat will win. The Democratic nominee, of course, will almost certainly be Barack Obama unless Obama decides that he isn’t up to the task of a second term. Some of us would argue he wasn’t up to the task of a first term.

There has been some idle speculation about possible third-party candidates that may enter the presidential race and shake things up. Former CNN host Lou Dobbs has stated that he is considering mounting a campaign for president. At least one writer has speculated that Fox News host Glenn Beck might make a run.

With wide national audiences, these popular pundits could play spoilers for Republicans without having any serious shot at winning the presidency, In other words, if they care about ending the Age of Obama in 2012, they should find other things to do with their time.

2012 may be far away, but it is never to early to play with presidential politics.

[This post was adapted from my North Star column Vegas is thinking 2012, so we should too]

Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue is already an amazing success in terms of sales and publicity. It will undoubtedly be one of the most successful tomes released this year. But what books will grab headlines next year? Here’s a look at the most anticipated non-fiction books to be released in 2010:

1) I’m Still Alive?By Sen. Robert Byrd

2) How To Win the Nobel Peace Prize in Zero Easy Steps By President Barack Obama *

3) Everything I know I Learned from Listening to Myself By Vice President Joe Biden

4) No Way Jose By Lou Dobbs

5) Sarah Palin is the Antichrist, But Without Her to Write About I Wouldn’t Have a Career By Maureen Dowd

6) Dick Cheney is the Devil By Chris Matthews

7) Ferris Bueller Would Have Been a Better President By Ben Stein

8) Die, Die, Die America By 9/11 Mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (with forward by Michael Moore) **

SEE MORE!

———

* While not yet complete, this book has already been awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature, the Pulitzer Prize and an Emmy Award in the Spoken Word Category.

** Forthcoming book will be a compilation of Mr. Mohammad’s long rants against the United States during his civilian trial in New York City.

Sarah Palin is all over the news again.

Why?

Purportedly because she wrote a book.

That’s right. Sarah Palin wrote a book. She appeared on Oprah. Barbara Walters interviewed her. Whoopee! Call in the news brigade.

As far as I can tell, there is nothing earth shattering in her book. I can’t say that from my own research because I haven’t read the book (and probably won’t). But I suspect if there was something supremely newsworthy in the book it would have been mentioned by now during the wall-to-wall Sarah Palin coverage on the cable news networks. At least one of the 11 AP fact checkers would have brought it to light, right?

The reason, of course, there is this frenzy over Palin’s book is because its debut provides an opportunity for talking heads to pontificate on a woman who is unquestionably one of the most polarizing figures in American politics. Those who love her really love her and can see no wrong in their Alaskan Annie Oakley. And those who hate her really hate her and insanely envision Sarah Palin as America’s Mullah Omar. With this type of passion on both sides, anything Palin does creates a firestorm. Even her Facebook posts inspire heated debate.

But can we please tone down the Palinmania coverage just a bit? She wrote a book, a book that doesn’t seem to be particularly groundbreaking.

There are a lot more important issues going on right now that deserve more coverage than Palinpalooza.

[This post was adapted from my North Star column So she wrote a book. That means we have to have full Palinpalooza?]