I watched Senators Clinton and Obama bloviate on TV for a bit as they addressed the party faithful in Butte the other night. It’s a bit hard to compare their handiwork to President Clinton’s appearance here in Great Falls—he was speaking up close to a much smaller crowd and isn’t the one who’s actually running this time around. Still, from what I saw neither can match his gift for rhetoric.

Obama’s not bad; he’s actually sort of a Bill-in-training. He can sound convincingly inspiring and will throw in the occasional fumbling pause, which actually helps him seem more genuine. But he’s so damn vague. I’m not sure he did anything but verbally wave the flag and hand out cookies. I know at this stage his strategy is just to stiff-arm Hillary till her campaign bleeds out, but come on, man. You’re going to have to stand for something before November.

Compared to Hillary, though, he’s Antony eulogizing Caesar: Hillary. Talks. Like. THIIIIIIIIS. Every word is its own sentence delivered with a audible stabbing motion, rising one after the next in volume to a thundering crescendo, as if merely raising her voice until she’s shouting lends her proclamations real weight. Try it; it’s fun actually. I. Will. Provide. Uni. Versal. Health. Care. For. ALLLLLLLLL.

Crikey. There’s only so much of that wind one can lean into before going all Doctor Gonzo and reaching for the guns. So I set aside my cigarette holder and .44 and made a run north to the Benton Lake Wildlife Refuge this afternoon. There was plenty of wind to be had there, too, but I’ll take that variety any day. Lots of snow geese honking and wallowing in the marsh, but the highlight of the day came as I was driving north on the western dike. I caught a pair of harriers swooping and diving above the cattails. I watched them for a while through binoculars as they rode the thermals in front of the Highwoods. Then two more harriers showed up and I could follow them all at once. I sipped coffee and listened to Wynton Marsalis on the car radio while waiting to see if they’d catch anything. Things got downright transcendent for a minute; it could only have been more intellectual if I were holding a half-smoked Gauloises and reading Nietzsche with one eye.

But it got me out of the house.