Recently, The Washington Post declared: “It's a great time for face time if you want to be a pundit on TV.”

Paul Farhi, who covers the media beat for the paper writes:

With the cable news networks ramping up wall-to-wall political coverage, the demand for people to analyze, comment upon and speculate wildly about the presidential race has expanded accordingly. The nation's economy might be coughing and wheezing, but there is no shortage of employment opportunities in Punditland. …

All three cable networks have small, standing armies of political journalists, think-tank wonks, ex-pols and vaguely affiliated political figures (typically described on the air as Democratic or Republican "strategists") to provide commentary and predictions at other hours of the day.

Still more demand for punditry comes from the weekend public-affairs programs on the broadcast networks; from public television and radio programs; and from foreign broadcasters, which have shown strong interest in this campaign.

These days, pundits-in-waiting such as Peter Mirijanian don't have to wait long for their phones to ring. Mirijanian, a Democrat who runs his own public relations firm in Washington, estimates that he has been on TV hundreds of times over the past seven years, usually to offer comments about companies or celebrities embroiled in a crisis. Mirijanian says he now gets “two to three” calls a week from TV networks that want him to talk about the presidential race. …

Mirijanian has worked in two presidential campaigns, but his status as a go-to pundit might be a result of his experience - as a TV pundit. “Let's face it: The bookers have to fill slots all day,” he says. "They're asking themselves, ‘Who do I know who can go on, who's reliable, and will do a good job?’”

Whether there are “too many pundits” is arguable, given the 24-hour news cycle that has become the norm, but The New York Times reports that “[t]he historic and long-running presidential campaigns of Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton have injected issues of race and gender into politics as never before” and that producers at cable news networks are casting a wider net to get pundits and commentators from “varied backgrounds and perspectives.”  

CNN viewers have come to know such black commentators as journalist and radio host Roland S. Martin, conservative strategist Amy Holmes - who used to write speeches for former Senate majority leader Bill Frist (R-TN) – and Dem strategist Donna Brazile, as well as Cuban-born Republican strategist Alex Castellanos and Mexican-American Republican strategist Leslie Sanchez.

At MSNBC the new crop of pundits include conservative attorney Michelle Bernard, Washington Post columnist Eugene H. Robinson, former Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D-TN) and Republican strategist Joe Watkins – all of whom are black – as well as Rachel Maddow, who is white and has a show on the hard-left Air America Radio.

FOX News has perhaps the most diverse line-up: National Public Radio correspondent Juan Williams, who is black; Republican strategist Angela McGlowan, who is also black; conservative columnist Michelle Malkin, a Filipina-American; Linda Chavez, whose father is Mexican and who served in the Reagan White House; and Laura Ingraham, a white syndicated radio talk show host and columnist.

“Even in this day and age, people have not been exposed to a lot of different kinds of people, so it’s important for us to all be here on TV together, talking about these things that really matter,” Bernard tells The Times.

Having talking heads on TV that mirror the diversity of the electorate – as well as the tsunami of political coverage, trivia and history available in print, online and on the airwaves (last item) – has had an unintended consequence: Now, everyone can be a pundit, according to The Times:

They sound like seasoned political pundits, dissecting delegate counts, comparing speaking styles, conjuring dream tickets and eagerly anticipating the conventions. …

From small businesses to global conglomerates, the 2008 presidential nominating contest is fast becoming the topic of conversation around the proverbial water cooler - and cubicle, and conference room. Suddenly, everyone’s a political maven, and the workplace, with easy access to potential debating partners, as well as Web sites like Slate and Politico, has become ground zero for political prognosticating. …

Members of certain professions like the news media are naturally attuned to the workings and language of politics. So for them, this election season feels a little like cranking up the volume on a favorite radio station. But for the first time in recent memory, even those who profess ignorance, who confess to barely mustering the energy to pull a lever on Election Day, find themselves sparring with colleagues and boning up on the strange system of superdelegates.

Steve Levin, a senior vice president for the Berkely Group, an insurance firm on Long Island, said he is usually more comfortable perusing the sports page, but has lately read news about the nominating process. …

Mr. Levin, for his part, believes that Senator Clinton will eke out the Democratic nomination, but that Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, will ultimately prevail.

Perhaps the bigger challenge is predicting when everyone can just get back to work. “As we get closer to the election, I’m sure it will be very distracting,” Mr. Levin said.

Our democratic process depends on informed voters, so The Stiletto applauds the high level of enthusiasm and engagement with which people are approaching this election – as long as Levin and others don’t launch their own blogs about “politics and other stuff.” The Stiletto has enough competition as it is!

Editorial Note: There was a certain obscure blogger with OpinionJournal.com who used to appear with some regularity on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight." The Stiletto can't think of his name just this second - you know, that untelegenic corpulent fellow with the grating voice. Anyway, The Stiletto hopes Dobbs replaces him with someone like Angela McGlowan or Michelle Bernard, if only to add some youth and estrogen to his “panel of distinguished political analysts.” 

It’s 3 A.M., And Hill’s Not In Bed With Bill (Again)

Hill and Bill turn out the lights in their separate bedrooms, and the phone rings at 3 a.m. – again. This time the crisis is economic, home foreclosures mounting markets teetering. And even though the banks are closed and the NYSE won’t open for another 6½ hours, Hillary answers the phone. But wait – it’s John McCain on the other end telling her that she and Barack Obama won’t solve the problem by raising The Stiletto’s taxes and taking more money out of her pocket. The better plan, he says, is to grow jobs, grow our economy, not grow Washington.    

Then McCain tells her to go back to bed, but she confesses she’s been tossing and turning because her campaign can’t make ends meet: She’s in debt up to her ear holes, has to juggle creditors and can’t even pay her health insurance premiums!

Which is why earlier that day a reporter asked: “What moment in Clinton's past had demonstrated her capacity to handle the kind of urgent economic crisis she depicts in the ad?” The Boston Globe reports that her communications director, Howard Wolfson, responded: “It's not a single moment, because unless you're president you don't have a single moment like that. It is a lifetime of experience, understanding, knowledge, and background in the issues that allows you to make the kind of good decisions that a president will need to make when getting a call at 3 a.m.”

Yeah, right.

Pig And Elephant DNA Just Won’t Splice

Remember that “South Park” episode when Kyle wants to crossbreed his pet elephant with Cartman’s pot-bellied pig, Fluffy, to get a pot-bellied elephant (video link; some cussing)?

Well, scientists at Newcastle University in the UK have created human-cow embryos by injecting human DNA into eggs from cow ovaries after removing the cow’s genetic material from them, a technique known as “somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT),” reports the Herald Sun (Melbourne, AU). “The embryos survived for three days and are intended to provide a limitless supply of stem cells to develop therapies for diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and spinal cord injuries, overcoming a worldwide shortfall in human embryos.” England’s Fertilization and Embryology Authority licensed Newcastle University to create the chimera under the proviso that the resulting embryos not be allowed to develop past 14 days. As one critic tells the paper, “No one knows exactly what would grow from these embryos.”

The only good thing to come out of cloned animal-human chimeras is that by the time global warming forces us to become cannibals, we may be able to create clones that taste like filet mignon.

[Hat Tip: The Heel, an Ivy-educated attorney with a prestigious New York firm.]