Pres. Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton top the list once again of the most admired men and women.Pres. Obama has topped the USA Today/Gallup poll for the last four years, and he is followed by Presidents Bush and Clinton in the second and third spots, respectively. Rev. Billy Graham and Warren Buffet round out the top five. Hillary Clinton is number one in the poll for the sixteenth time in the last 18 years. Oprah, First Lady Michelle Obama, Sarah Palin, and Condoleezza Rice finish the top five/KREM & USA Today. More here. (Dec. 2 AP file photo: Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton react after speaking to the press at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar)

Question: Which national figures would top your most admired man/woman lists?

So Hillary Clinton is the most popular national figure in America.  I've even heard there has been a movement for her to challenge Obama in a primary.  She could, you know.  And probably win because all her fans would come out in force.  But I doubt she will unless things get far worse than they already are.  She's too good a soldier. Hindsight being 20/20, I do believe either she or McCain would have been the better President.  Both look at the country more like most of us.  They'd be trying to strengthen it from the damage done before rather than trying to change it to match an ideology of mediocrity/Dogwalk Musings. More here. (AP file photo)

Question: Do you want Hillary Clinton to challenge President Barack Obama in the 2012 Democratic primary?

I remember when I first blogged on the possibility of Hillary Clinton resigning her position as Sec of State in order to run against President Obama. Folks responded with a variety-on-the-same-theme: “What are you smokin'?” After years of working with ex-addicts and ex-inmates, I laughed…sort of. “You don't have to be high, to see illusions”, I remember telling a friend. “Obama's strength is an illusion. That's where the pipe-dream is.” Barack Obama, the President, is not who the Democrats voted for when they chose him as Barack Obama, The Nominee/Dennis Mansfield. More here.

Other Idaho Blogs:

• Ukulele superstar: Roman Kudela/CowDiva
• Let's go for a ride, let's swim through the tide/Fort Boise
• Speaking Spanish puts children at risk/MeAndG, 43rd State Blues
• Trout stream or motorcycle trail/Idaho Conservation League
• College football: The case for reform/Marc Johnson, Johnson Report
• Senseless Pat Robertson/The Political Game
• Carlson: The grain of truth/Ridenbaugh Press
• Elwha ceremony recalls how treaty fight changed Northwest/Rocky Barker

Question: Who would you prefer to run as the Democratic nominee in 2012: President Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton?

In this image released by the White House and digitally altered by the source to diffuse the paper in front of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, along with with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House, Sunday in Washington. Story here. (AP Photo/The White House, Pete Souza)

President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton stand during a remembrance ceremony for fallen comrades, at a round table meeting of the North Atlantic Council, during a NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal, Friday. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Question: In her latest post, Dogwalk Musings wonders whether Hillary Clinton should cut and run from what she labels the Obama administration’s “abysmal foreign policy” and possibly cut and run for president in two years. What do you think? Could Clinton beat Obama in the Democrat primaries in 2012?

Remember too how the boomers wanted men to be more like women? Softer. Sensitive. More open with their feelings? Now it appears we may have one about to become the new Speaker of the House, John Boehner . I rather like seeing that in a man. One who can tear up over the Star Spangled Banner or even just from watching a sentimental movie. Of all things that can make a politician ‘one of us’ I think a genuine display of sentimentality just might be it. Forget the beer and bowling shtick/Dogwalk Musings. More here.

Question: Do you prefer politicians who can tear up — and show their human side?

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton points out that she is wearing the same color as the mascot of the Shanghai World Expo 2010, named Haibao, while touring China’s Pavilion in Shanghai, China, earlier today. You write the cutline. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)

• 1. Tareq and Michaele Salahi find another creative way to have their picture taken with a political figure after security was increased after they crashed President Obama’s first State Dinner — Shannon.
• 2. “Hey, my eyes are down here!” says the condom shaped mascot to Secretary of State Clinton — Gary D. Rhodes.
• 3. You’re kidding, I came in third for the mascot contest. Hillary demanded a recount! — Charlie.
• HM: Formerly Sandpoint
  

I wasn’t surprised while reading a book on the last presidential election to learn that the three leading contenders - Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain - resorted in moments of anger and frustration to the use of the F-bomb. Politicians can be hot-headed in their language. Of course, most people resort to strong, heartfelt exclamations ranging from “Drat!” to hissy-fit outbursts of the coarsest kind when they hit their thumbs with a hammer or are infuriated by something. Few painkillers are as instantly effective as wallowing in the crude words once used mostly by sailors. But I was surprised how frequently in the book “Game Change” by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin the three major candidates chose the favorite Anglo-Saxon obscenity to alleviate their many moments of distress/Bill Hall, Lewiston Tribune. More here.

Question: Whose use of the F-bomb surprises you most — Barack Obama’s, Hillary Clinton’s, or John McCain’s?

Joe Heller/Hellertoons

 Former President Bill Clinton, center, and daughter Chelsea Clinton, right, look on during a ceremonial swearing-in for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today at the State Department in Washington. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

SR’s Today In Pictures here