The impossible dream, of course, is that Barack Obama might someday appear opposite Stephen Colbert, who, via his know-it-all know-nothing character, engages in true, niche-market satire -- an act so irresistible that the debut of Not Just Another Cable News Show ultimately threw its hands up and just played clips from The Colbert Report's "Better Know a District." Obama has already engaged Colbert on his own terms, publicly sending the host a letter on the eve of his delivering a commencement address at Illinois' Knox College. "Don't forget to bring the Truth," Obama wrote. "I'd recommend putting it in your carry-on bag rather than in your checked luggage. O'Hare Airport is notoriously unreliable." The letter is droll, the tone poker-faced. At one point, Obama refers to his constituents as germy ("a few words of advice ... use hand sanitizer") in a way that subtly acknowledges the disgust that all politicians must feel, at some level, for the public. It's very funny, and you can't do that on television. 

Last week, the president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, warned that 33 nations are at risk of social unrest because of the rising prices of food. “For countries where food comprises from half to three-quarters of consumption, there is no margin for survival,” he said.

Washington provides a subsidy of 51 cents a gallon to ethanol blenders and slaps a tariff of 54 cents a gallon on imports. In the European Union, most countries exempt biofuels from some gas taxes and slap an average tariff equal to more than 70 cents a gallon of imported ethanol. There are several reasons to put an end to these interventions. At best, corn ethanol delivers only a small reduction in greenhouse gases compared with gasoline. And it could make things far worse if it leads to more farming in forests and grasslands. Rising food prices provide an urgent argument to nix ethanol’s supports.