THE PRESIDENTIAL PANORAMA

Hillary will win the Democratic nomination.

Rudy will win the Republican nomination.

Or he may not.

With the dogmatic arms of Pat Robertson now around Rudy (they had their big hug for us all to see), it may be a big pie-in-the-face for Giuliani, who

is as much (or more) the war hawk as George W. Bush.

Pat Buchanan has this to say about Rudy’s advisers:

Best known of Rudy's advisers is Norman Podhoretz, who wrote in June, "The Case for Bombing Iran" in Commentary, thinks we are in "World War IV" and writes that "as an American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart" Bush will bomb Iran. Podhoretz sees us at Munich in 1938 and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Hitler.

"Like Hitler," writes Podhoretz, Ahmadinejad "is a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international order and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism."

Time to return to Planet Earth. Ahmadinejad is not only jeered at Columbia but at colleges in Tehran. He is openly attacked by rivals. He does not control the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. He does not decide on war or peace. He runs a regime with 2 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, no nukes and no navy or air force to rival ours. He is a Shi'ite in a Sunni world. How is this 5 foot, 4 inch Persian going to strong-arm the United States, Russia and China ­ not to mention an Israel with 300 nukes ­ into his "new order"?

After the axis-of-evil speech threatening war on Iraq, Iran and North Korea, Podhoretz wrote that Bush had not gone far enough.

The "regimes that richly deserve to be overthrown ... should extend to Syria and Lebanon and Libya, as well as 'friends' of America like the Saudi royal family and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, along with the Palestinian Authority." After toppling them all, wrote Podhoretz, as he mocked the "timorous ... incorrigibly cautious Colin Powell," let's find "the stomach to impose a new political culture on the defeated."

Bush found the stomach. Near 4,000 Americans are dead, 27,000 wounded, Walter Reed is full, and Norman is looking for new wars. On a recent National Review cruise, he ranted that Iraq was an "amazing success," "a triumph. It couldn't have gone better." As for Saddam's WMDs, they were secretly "shipped to Syria."

After meeting with his candidate, Podhoretz emerged happy to assure us, "There is very little difference in how he (Rudy) sees the war and I see it." If true, a vote for Rudy is a vote for endless war.

And, as James Madison said, wars are the death of republics.

Other crystal ball forecasts:

Mrs. Hillary the Giggle will select as her running mate John Edwards, Bill Richardson, or Barack Obama (but these are stretches of the imagination.)

Mr. Rudy the Grin will select either Fred Thompson or Newt Gingrich to be his vice-president (but these are more stretches of the imagination).

Playing the roulette wheel and winning is more likely than any of these predictions.

New variables and unexpected surprises will enter the presidential panorama.

But one thing is for certain, and this is that the American people (and the world) are fed up to the gills with all of the lies and demagoguery.

The most likely outcomes are likely to become something quite different.

It's going to become more and more interesting.

Now is the calm before the storm.

The GOP will make Iran one of its trump cards.

There won’t be any shoe-ins or sure things.

Candidates such as Bill Richardson, John Edwards, Ron Paul, and yes, even Mr. Nobel Prize winner Al Gore could pull some fast ones (i.e. fast wins) when all is said and done.

But even after everything is said and done, the corporate and behind-the-scenes masters will pull the strings of anyone who is elected.

That is why mavericks such as Kucinich and Ron Paul will never be picked…

I mean elected.

It’s the oil stupid.