It'll get worse. Osama Bin Laden, up in his cave, is planning to endorse Barak Obama -- he's just trying to figure out the best time to cause the most mayhem. Wouldn't he do that? Reaching his long, nasty fingers into our domestic choices. It's too bad our cowboy President didn't take him out.

Excuse me -- just my nightmare.

The Obama pastor flap explains why Colin Powell didn't want to run for President in 2000, because race will rear its ugly head sooner or later. Powell, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and then as Secretary of State, rose as far up as he could go without getting into electoral politics. Nobody ever threw mud at him -- but if he had taken one step out into the public arena, it would have gotten rough. Powell knew what would happen to the first serious black candidate, and he knew he wasn't going to be that man.

Powell saw what happened to Clarence Thomas in 1991. Thomas should have been challenged on his judicial merits. Instead, among so many men who were as bad or worse, Thomas became the poster boy for sexual harassment.

Then there was OJ Simpson in 1994. Powell saw that one too. And he said now way. Or maybe his wife said no way.

But Obama is going through with it -- with more courage than Powell or too dumb and young to know better. Obama is getting all kinds of static about his pastor and his white grandmother. The critics are clairvoyant -- they know the exact words that his white grandmother spoke, those words that made Barak cringe. Because they happen to know those exact words, they judiciously say that it didn't amount to much -- I guess they have better sources than I do.

I am not certain that Obama is the best man to become President, but I am 100 percent behind him on this racial nonsense. It seems to me a rather personal matter whom you choose for a pastor, but this lurid fascination with the "dark" lives of our darker brethren disgusts me. Usually it's about sex -- at least that's not happening this time.

But here's the good news -- with Obama becoming a national figure, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton will no longer be the "official spokesmen for black America" -- Those guys are finished, praise the Lord.

Obama does not owe a dime to the civil rights establishment which has ridden herd on black America since the 1960s. Let my people go!

Meanwhile, Hillary, driving a car with no reverse gear, has announced that she would not attend such a church, or would walk out. Thanks for the input.

But I had a secret litmus test between the two all along -- the first one to take a break would get my support. Hillary slogged on through the Easter weekend. Obama, who actually has a life, went to the Virgin Islands for a three-day rest.

Obama, as much as he is driven by ego and ambition, also likes to take a walk on the beach with his family.

So much for politics. I am combining campaign reports with news from the hospital where I work because political enterprise needs to be grounded in our daily reality. I cannot give the name of the hospital because that would imply that I am speaking on its behalf. The hospital has an excellent director of communications, and I'm not going to step on her toes. And patient privacy is a priority. And I want to keep my job.

RARE DISEASES AND ROUTINE SURGERY.

"It's a routine surgery."

What?

"Well, it's a fairly common procedure, and the outcome is almost always positive."

But....

"Of course, in a very small number of cases, it's possible that..."

That's what I thought, I'm gonna die.

"Look, it'll be over before you know it, and you won't feel a thing.... I mean, again, there is the slight possibility of some discomfort, but that's not likely, and we have very good pain medication."

I'm gonna die. You're going to put me unconscious and cut me open with a knife. I can see my guts spilling all over the place and there's blood everywhere.

The patient screams. The surgeon makes a wordless, reassuring gesture. The patient shakes his head, looks out the window for a moment and says, "Okay, whatever, give me the form, I'll sign it."

Thus concludes the world's shortest medical drama. Stay tuned next week for a story called, "The Wonder of Phlegm."

Also, the annual Frog Hospital subscription drive is coming soon, so get your check books ready.