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"They said that they would have huge gains on March 4," Plouffe said. "They’re going to fail and fail miserably. "

But the thief underestimated a tiny piece of modern-day technology found in many cell phones today: the SIM card, which contains data unique to only the individual who owns the phone, including phone numbers, e-mail addresses, etc.

After the robbery, the mugger checked his own email using Polanco's SIM card. So when Polanco, a junior at Norman Thomas High School, had her old information transferred to her new phone, the mugger's e-mail address showed up.

That's when Polanco decided to do some investigating of her own, and looked up the mugger's e-mail on MySpace. Sure enough, a profile popped up that showed a picture of the culprit, but she wanted even more evidence.

So Polanco asked a girlfriend of hers to start an online friendship with him through the social networking giant.

"I told her to request him because his page was private information so I could get a better picture of him," she said.

Turned out the mugger, identified then as 16-year-old Victor Hernandez, thought he was a ladies' man too and bought into the ploy. Hernandez sent several photos and other identifying information to Polanco's friend, and the pair finally presented the evidence to police.

"You're stupid because you thought you were slick to steal a phone, and he actually signed on. That was a stupid thing to do," she said.

The phrase “natural born” was in early drafts of the Constitution. Scholars say notes of the Constitutional Convention give away little of the intent of the framers. Its origin may be traced to a letter from John Jay to George Washington, with Jay suggesting that to prevent foreigners from becoming commander in chief, the Constitution needed to “declare expressly” that only a natural-born citizen could be president.

Ms. Duggin and others who have explored the arcane subject in depth say legal argument and basic fairness may indeed be on the side of Mr. McCain, a longtime member of Congress from Arizona. But multiple experts and scholarly reviews say the issue has never been definitively resolved by either Congress or the Supreme Court.

The smears are going to get sillier and sillier. I guess the good news is this is the best they can come up with. Closing quote:

“If I were on the Supreme Court, I would decide for John McCain,” Ms. Pryor said in a recent interview. “But it is certainly not a frivolous issue.”

Of course, all this might generate a little more sympathy had not some Democrats in recent months become so fond of the name "George Felix Allen, Jr." During the campaign, winning Senate candidate James Webb routinely referred to his opponent as George Felix Allen, Jr. (just search for the name at webbforsenate.com.) Although it wasn't even correct — Allen, whose father's middle name was Herbert, wasn't a junior — the use of Allen's full name was clearly a campaign strategy, first, to diminish Allen, and then, after news of Allen's Jewish ancestry emerged, to make an oblique reference to that.

However, the pastor of his church, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, has created problems for Obama in Jewish circles. A magazine connected to Wright honored Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and last month Obama said he condemned "the anti-Semitic statements made by Minister Farrakhan" and disagreed with a decision to honor him.

Wright, Obama said Sunday, "is like an old uncle who sometimes will say things that I don't agree with. And I suspect there are some of the people in this room who have heard relatives say some things that they don't agree with, including, on occasion, directed at African Americans. ... I am not suggesting that's definitive."

Obama also distanced himself from Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser in the Jimmy Carter administration who traveled to Iowa with Obama when he made an Iraq speech.

"I do not share his views with respect to Israel. I have said so clearly and unequivocally," Obama said. "He's not one of my key advisers. I've had lunch with him once. I've exchanged e-mails with him maybe three times. He came to Iowa to introduce ... for a speech on Iraq."

Obama, of course, defuses the whole issue with a joke about the difference between "rejecting" and "denouncing," and the audience is laughing at Hillary's insertion of her own "rejection" of anti-Semitic supporters. Sorry, Hill. You can't win, can you?