by Mark Silva

You know, when the "local cultural icon'' of Whiting, Indiana, struts his stuff, that a Polka Parade cannot be far behind.

And "Mr. Pierogi'' performed his duties, as usual, at the annual Pierogi Festival, where one 92-pound medley of potato, flour, butter, eggs, onions and water took the prize this weekend for the "World's Largest Pierogi.''

The big favorites -- and our correspondent tells us big was the operative word in Whiting this weekend -- are the Pierogi Festival anthem, sung to the tune of "Matilda," the "Whiting, Indiana" song and the modified Broadway hit, "Guys and Pierogis.''

The attached photographs are Swamp exclusives, courtesy of a correspondent in Chicago who knows how to get out of town when the getting is good.

(Pierogigraphs by Dylan Silva)

by Mark Silva

Tony Snow was much bigger than the post he held.

When he spoke from the West Wing podium of the White House, he was not only speaking for the president of the United States, but also speaking for himself. Some called the president's press secretary argumentative. He didn't lose many arguments. And he reveled in the intellectual combat of his assignment.

When Snow left that post in September to confront a recurring cancer that he had battled before joining President Bush's staff 17 months before, he departed with an unbowed optimism about his life ahead, his writing, his hopes of helping others confront their cancers. He returned, albeit briefly, to the television commentary in which he had made his name.

Snow called that stint as press secretary "the most exciting, intellectually aerobic job I'm ever going to have."

And today, Tony Snow, father of three and a friend to all crossed his path, passed away. He was 53.

It's the president who is doing the talking today, for not only himself, but also his father, whom Snow also served.

"America has lost a devoted public servant and a man of character,'' Bush said in a statement released this morning from Camp David.

"Tony was one of our nation's finest writers and commentators,'' the president said. "He earned a loyal following with incisive radio and television broadcasts.

"He was a gifted speechwriter who served in my father's administration. And I was thrilled when he agreed to return to the White House to serve as my press secretary. It was a joy to watch Tony at the podium each day. He brought wit, grace, and a great love of country to his work. His colleagues will cherish memories of his energetic personality and relentless good humor.''

by Frank James

On this Independence Day, as we pay annual homage to the Declaration of Independence for which Thomas Jefferson gets most of the credit for authoring, let's not forget the signal contribution made by Benjamin Franklin -- entrepreneur, scientist, diplomat, statesman and, apparently, wordsmith.

If not for Franklin, one of the most famous parts of the Declaration would likely read, "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable."

Franklin, a member of the Continental Congress committee charged with creating the document, had a better idea. He crossed out the words "sacred and undeniable" and substituted "self-evident."

You can see the actual draft declaration, with Franklin's edit, here

Walter Isaacson, in his Franklin biography, explains how the amply padded founding father and Renaissance man arrived at "self-evident."

The idea of "self-evident" truths was one that drew less on John Locke, who was Jefferson's favored philosopher, than on the scientific determinism espoused by Isaac Newton and on the analytic empiricism of Franklin's close friend David Hume. In what became known as "Hume's fork," the great Scottish philosopher, along with Leibniz and others, had developed a theory that distinguished between synthetic truths that describe matters of fact (such as "London is bigger than Philadephia") and analytic truths that are self-evident by virtue of reason and definition ("The angles of a triangle equal 180 degrees"; "All bachelors are unmarried"). By using the word "sacred," Jefferson had asserted, intentionally or not, that the principle in question--the equality of men and their endowment by their creator with inalienable rights--was an assertion of religion. Franklin's edit turned it instead into an assertion of rationality."

This may be one of the few times in history that a committee actually improved on the final product.

by Jim Tankersley

France celebrates its independence day on the anniversary of a citizen uprising at a prison; Canada's comes on the anniversary of a legislative act recognizing its self-governance. In the United States, we celebrate a "Dear John" letter to the King of England.

The Declaration of Independence did not secure America's sovereignty - that took a war. It did not provide the framework for the nation's democratic government - that took the Constitution. But it remains arguably the most-read, most-quoted, most-endearing document in the United States.

One way to read the nation's history is as a continuing struggle to make good on the ideals the Declaration holds to be self-evident: "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

The Declaration begins with a paragraph schoolchildren across the country can recite: "When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

It goes on to ruminate on human rights, to detail the states' grievances with King George, to label him a tyrant and to, in an extraordinary act of defiance, declare those states free from that tyranny - seceding from the world's great imperial power.

The words are just as important today. Between the hot dogs and the fireworks, they're worth a read. Here's the full text:

James Frances Jr. leads the Emancipation Trail Ride in 2002 in Galveston, Texas. Riders traveled a mile for each of the 137 years since the Emancipation Proclamation was read in Galveston. (AP Photo/The Galveston County Daily News, Kevin Bartram)

by Mark Silva

July Fourth may be on its way, but "Juneteenth'' is here today.

This is the day, in 1865, that Union soldiers sailed into Galveston, Tex., and announced the end of the Civil War with the reading of a general order freeing one quarter of a million slaves living in Texas.

The Emancipation Proclamation may already have gone into effect on January 1863, but slavery persisted. Just as legally sanctioned racial discrimination persisted well into the 20th Century.

June 19th has become a day of celebration in its own right - "a time of celebration, but also a time of reflection, healing, and hopefully a time for the country to come together and deal with its slave legacy,'' says the Rev. Ronald Meyers, chairman of the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation.

He has worked for years to get the day recognized by state Legislatures - with more than half the states now acknowledging it in some fashion or another, some with holidays the third Saturday of June.

Only one state celebrates it as a legal holiday: Texas.

by Frank James

Forty years ago today, some of us thought the world must be about to end. Sen. Robert Kennedy was assassinated. Coming as it did only a few months after Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, surely, it must be the end of days. At least that's the way it felt to a forlorn kid walking the streets of the Bronx.

There have been many calamities since then and the world obviously is still with us.

But even with all the tragedies over all the decades, the heart hasn't hardened so much that I can look at the footage from that Los Angeles night in 1968 and not be deeply saddened by what Sirhan Sirhan did in that Ambassador Hotel pantry.

Historian and Kennedy-family friend Arthur Schlesinger Jr. tells us that after President John Kennedy was killed, RFK sought to make sense of what happened through reading.

A passage from Aeschylus made a profound impression on him, so much so, RFK quoted it during a speech to a crowd in Indianapolis in the hours following King's murder:

"In our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

RFK's death, for millions of us still, is the pain that cannot forget. Maybe it made us wiser, though most days it doesn't feel like it.

by Mark Silva

Okay, so maybe Chicago has a reputation for doing politics its own way.

In this reputation, the after-life comes with full voting rights.

But the late Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley serving as a superdelegate for Sen. Barack Obama's presidential bid?

Daley, who served as mayor for 21 years and passed away in 1976, may have played big roles in the presidential campaigns of John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Hubert Humphrey in 1968. But this is taking power-broking beyond the beyond.

At least, that's what the typo at PBS.org would have a reader believe.
Its comprehensive list of superdelegates supporting the candidacies of either Obama or Sen. Hillary Clinton includes this one: "Former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.''

Of course, it's the current mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley, who backs Obama. He is no former mayor - having first won election in 1989, his reelection last year sets him up to surpass his father's record of 21 years in the office.

With empathy for all good typos everywhere - PBS can explain this one on Jon Stewart's The Daley Show (insert smile here).

by Mark Silva

Hillary Clinton carried Ohio in March.

Barack Obama hopes to carry it in November. He'll have to, if he is his party's nominee, and hopes to beat John McCain -- unless Obama can turn a few other states his way. So McCain hopes to carry it, too.

But Robbie Knievel owns Ohio at the moment.

"Kaptain" Knievel successfully jumped over 24 delivery trucks Saturday night at the site of one of his father's most famous stunts. Knievel had calculated that he would be traveling at 95 miles per hour during the jump, which he completed to "wild cheers at Kings Island amusement park near Cincinnati,'' the AP tells us.

Evel Knievel jumped 14 buses there in 1975. He died last year after suffering from failing health for many years. He was 69.

John McCain will be 72 at election, if he carries Ohio and a few more.

Evel Knievel: RIP.

Ohio: Bring it on..

by Mark Silva, notes and photos

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt -- The Red Sea is really aquamarine.

And salty as can be.

Electric-blue and yellow tropical fish shimmer across the live coral reef that lines the beach at Sharm el Sheikh.

And don't worry about me -- I'm on the case.

by Mark Silva

Well, we didn't have what you might call a groundswell of response to the call for readers' picks for Hillary Clinton's Top 10.

But, in the spirit of the contest offered, we did find one worthy of crowning the winner.

So this morning's Swampy goes to.... With Clinton headed for the David Letterman show on Monday to unveil her own Top 10 list -- an equal-time response to Barack Obama's Top 10 last week -- we are posting the entry of Swamp reader and respondent Robert Hewson, who cited the "political psychology'' blog, Head of State, in answering the call from The Swamp.

We're still trying to figure out No. 1, but here it is:

Top 10 Inducements From the Clinton Camp To Vote for Hillary

10. All future Hoosiers teams can draft players from the NBA

9. Superdelegates will get actual Spandex costumes along with Super Power of choice

8. Permanent liquor tax holiday

7. Will limit husband to "low traffic" zones of White House

6. Promises to use only one personality throughout first 100 days of Presidency

5. Will hold Inaugural Ball in Smiley's Pub, Allentown, PA.

4. Free rides on Mark Penn

3. Will provide personal armed one-woman security detail through any combat zone

2. New shampoo: No More Tears

And the No. 1 inducement to vote for Hillary Clinton:

1: New National Bird: Barbeque.

by Mark Silva

"Please excuse me if I'm a little sleepy,'' President Bush said last night. "It's that 3 a.m. phone.... It's a damn weighty thing.''

And so began the president's nostalgic swan song at the annual dinner of the White House Correspondents Association -- Listen to Stars and Stripes.ram for the appropriate musical accompaniment to this posting -- a black tie soiree attended by the likes of Martha Stewart, Perez Hilton, Pamela Anderson and Mitt Romney. Anderson and Romney in the same room, Bush noted: "Isn't that the definition of the Apocalypse?''

Maybe not the Apocalypse, but certainly the end of an eight-year run for a comedian-in-chief who always has approached these dinners with a certain careless abandon. At the rostrum for his act of the evening, the retiring president noted that neither of the Democratic candidates for president had joined the star-studded crowd.

"Sen. Clinton couldn't get in the building because of sniper fire,'' Bush said, "and Sen. Obama is in church.''

The president who arrived here with his own contested election noted that his opponent had won the Nobel Prize. What'll Bush get? The Publisher's Clearinghouse.

President Bush today introduced "Frank Buckles, 107-years-young... the last living Doughboy from World War I.'' White House photo by Eric Draper

by Aamer Madhani

He fought the Kaiser with the U.S. Army during World War I. As a civilian working in the Philippines shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was taken prisoner of war and ate out of the same tin cup for his more than three-year-long imprisonment.

Today, the 107-year-old Frank Buckles—the last known U.S. military veteran to serve during World War I— was honored with a White House visit and was made the guest of honor at a ceremony at the Pentagon where portraits of Buckles and eight other World War I veterans were unveiled.

“Mr. Buckles' mind is sharp, his memory is crisp, and he's been sharing with me some interesting anecdotes,” President Bush said during Buckles' Oval Office visit. “I asked him where he lived, and he said, that reminds me of what General Pershing asked me. And he told the General that he was raised on a farm in Missouri. And the General said, ‘Well, you know, as the crow flies, it's 40 miles from where I was raised.’”

The dog's life: Chewbacca celebrates Leap Day

by Mark Silva

It's Leap Day.

For all who wait four years for a proper birthday party, Happy Birthday!

This is the first Leap Day here in the Swamp, born on Jan. 3, 2006.

One more day in what promises to be a runaway new record month of traffic here in these pages. Without the Leap Year, we already were on target for more than 2 million page-views this month (Thank You!).

One more day for that presidential campaign to unfold in Ohio and Texas -- is that added day of particular benefit to Barack Obama? He has gained momentum in both states heading into the March 4 primaries and an added day on the calendar can only offer more room.

One more day for a record campaign fundraising month -- with word of a $50 million month coming from the Obama campaign, $35 million over at camp Clinton (think they've held back $5 million of that to repay the candidate's loan? Or have they put it all on the table?)

One more day for the Bush administration, with the president heading to Texas today for a weekend respite and visit by the Danish prime minister, Rasmussen. It's a reciprocal visit -- Bush visited Rasmussen at his summer home outside of Copenhagen a couple of years back.

One more day for a war in Iraq approaching its fifth anniversary.

One more day for Mike Huckabee's "miracle'' to arrive.

One more day for that debate over Barack Obama's middle name, and one more day for speculation about the "passive-aggressive'' campaign that Bill waged for Hillary Clinton.

One more day to wait for Tuesday, to see if it is all over in Ohio and Texas.

Or, just another Friday.

The Potomac, just below Great Falls. Photo by Mark Silva

by Mark Silva

They say a Potomac primary will play out here Tuesday. Well, you should have seen the Potomac today.

Up on the eastern end of the Billy Goat trail west of Washington, the section not too rocky for a dog, the wind was whipping the river into a fine, sunlit mist swirling up the rock cliffs on the Virginia side, and the wind was snapping great branches from the tops of leaflees trees atop the bluffs here on the Maryland side. The trees groaned and threw trunk-thick debris crashing to the ground.

A sole kayaker paddled up the rapids, and the leading engine of the Arctic Express blew frigid air down the rock canyon of the river that descends toward Washington through several rapids and falls, mainly the Great Falls upriver from us, at the start of the goat-grade stretch of the Billy Goat trail.

The river is high today, swamping the low rocks which afford the closest eye-level views of the rapids, and, as I sit on the sand of the path half-sunken my dog Bree has settled in behind me, guarded from the sharp wind and warming my back.

Barack 0bama was stirring up his own storm at a rally at an Alexandria high school, Hillary Clinton was whipping up some cheers at a rally out in Manassas and Mike Huckabee was stumping down in Lynchburg at the pulpit of the home church of the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, the one whom John McCain once denounced as an agent of intolerance. They are all here now, bidding for the voters of the Potomac and Chesapeake watersheds, the Tidewater crowd and the southwest mountain folks.

And out here on the wind-swept Potomac, a lone kayaker struggled against the glare of the sun-splashed rapids.

by Mark Silva

PANACEA, Fla. -- At this time of year, the sun rises at the mouth of the Ochlockonee River and casts a long reflection out where the wide river meets the Gulf of Mexico. At dawn, thousands of black and white Scaup fly downstream, coasting about a foot above the glassine river surface, and out to Ochlockonee Bay. Dolphins swim along with them.

This is the Florida which the rest of the world has overlooked, the Florida beyond the Interstates. And we are thankful for that.

This is where we've come to rest for a spell.

And here, with a few snapshots from the real swamp, we'd like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a peaceful celebration of every other holiday at this tumultuous year's end.