The Big Rooster in the Room.

I figure we all ought to be quoting the New York Times while we can before the dreaded (and doomed to fail) "fire wall" goes into place and, while I usually think she is too fatuous and imitation Dowd-ian clever by half, Gail Collins is pretty good today, especially this key line:

If the Democrats are looking for a wake-up call from Massachusetts, the big rooster in the room is the plethora of underwhelming candidates they are fielding.

It is Darlin' Arlen of whom she speaks in particular. It is typical of the Dems that they would add this perennial phony to their ranks right at the time his seemingly endless shelf life was running out.