A friend asked earlier this week what I thought of President Obama's late-night speech to the nation, announcing the death of Osama bin Laden, in view of the widespread celebratory reaction. In particular, she asked, how did I-a lawyer who handles both criminal and civil liberties matters-react to the President's handling of the killing, rather than capture, of the Al-Qaeda leader.

One thing even more certain than Tea Party bigotry is the fact that the Democratic demographic is a melting pot worthy of a college catalog cover. Outside of today's pres-assisted rally at the Hynes Convention Center, old folks, young cats, black, white, and Jersey-orange Oompa Loompas all congregated for a glimpse of United States Senator John Kerry.

Subcultures spawn defining rituals: fans of Insane Clown Posse have the Gathering of the Juggalos; practitioners of radical self-realization congregate at Burning Man; and for the national journo-politico elite and its legion of camp followers there are the publication of Bob Woodward's inside-the-Beltway, memo-and-tell, docudramas.

In the 19 months since the 2008 election, our nation's political landscape has taken quite the dramatic turn. The Democrats have succumbed to a Wall Street-like plunge in popularity. And in a bizarro-world scenario, health care has morphed Obama into a grossly polarizing figure, while Sarah Palin has birthed a "Yes We Can"-style underdog attack of her own -- successfully stirring the pot during her recent Tea Party appearance in our very own Common

Last weekend Sarah Palin, once again, showed her incredible brilliance -- and this time she doesn't have McCain's team or anyone else to blame for the backlash. Speaking at the first-ever National Tea Party Convention, Palin tried to rip on Obama for being just a "charismatic guy with a teleprompter" right before she flashed her hand with notes scribbled on it for her Q&A session with Tea Party founder Judson Phillips.

Biggest local State of the Union winners? Central Square tech firm CRIMSON HEXAGON, whose VOXTROT platform was used on CNN's big-screen to provide instantaneous audience-feedback to SOTU, with a pretty impressive degree of differentiation. The software, "based on groundbreaking work conducted at Harvard University's Institute for Quantitative Social Science, distills meaning about brands, products, services, markets and competitors from the online conversation."

Our intrepid political reporter DAVID BERNSTEIN is micro-blogging the Brown-Coakley campaign as we head into the final 72 hours. Follow Bernstein on Twitter to get the latest. Among his updates recently:

• Watch out, FB-loving Brown supporters: Facebook's Chief Privacy Officer recently contributed $2400 to Coakley

Someday soon, political strategists will look back on the 2008 presidential campaign the way NASA scientists sigh at the Apollo moon landing -- as an example of a way that fighting a big, idealistic fight demanded a period of intense and disruptive innovation. At least, that's the way DAVID PLOUFFE sees it.

It's been a year since that night in Chicago, which for photographer SCOUT TUFANKJIAN was the end of a two-year journey that had started with a New Hampshire book tour by the then-junior Senator from Illinois, who had not yet declared his intention to run for the nation's highest office.

A year ago tomorrow we woke up and elected the first-ever black President. A couple of weeks ago at the Boston Book Festival, a panel of pundits kicked off what is sure to be an avalanche of first-year retrospectives on the Obama presidency. Surprise: nobody's happy. And this, folks, is the loyal opposition.

LANI GUINIER says the first year of Obama has been marked by the "dis-involvement of all the people who helped make him president in the first place," adding that if he sticks to his current course, it will be "very dificult to accomplish the change he promised and that we need."

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) delivered a stunning blow to Chicago this afternoon in Copenhagen, Denmark, when, in voting to determine which of four world-class cities would get to host the 2016 Olympic Games, Chicago -- one of the inside favorites to win -- was knocked out in the first round.

Let Madrid, Rio, or Tokyo have the 2016 Olympic Games. Mr. President, if you love Chicago, you will ask the IOC to spend that summer anywhere but your adopted hometown.

As we predicted last week, yesterday President Obama flip-flopped on traveling to Copenhagen to lobby the Olympic committee. According to the NY Times:

Many presidents and statesmen before him have tried and failed to overhaul the shame that is America's health-care system, but Obama is on the right track and continues to plug away at reform. Earlier today, he spoke in front of nearly 2,000 members of the American Medical Association in Chicago and received a number of applause for his remarks.