The Other Charlotte blogs today on Sen. Barack Obama, the new Dem heartthrob who has no there there. Our blogger friend Bookworm also writes about the existential nothingness that is the Illinois senator, as do John Podhoretz and Dick Morris.


But I can’t worry too much, because I couldn?t stop laughing at this:


First, Maureen Dowd writes, way last October, and way buried at the bottom of her New York Times column:


“He’s intriguingly imperfect: His ears stick out, he smokes, and he’s written about wrestling with pot, booze and ‘maybe a little blow’ as a young man.


Uh-oh–and not about that youthful marijuana, juice, and crack cocaine experimentation, either. Here’s Obama, nearly two months later, this past Sunday, in fact (the guy not only has the ears but the memory of an elephant, it seems):


“After his press conference, he headed toward New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd and chided her — in a kidding way — for a comment in the 12th of 14 paragraphs in an Oct 21 column. She wrote that Obama’s ‘ears stick out.’


“‘I just want to put you on notice,’ he said.


“‘I was teased relentlessly when I was a kid about my big ears.'”


And here’s Rush Limbaugh, listening to the tape of said “kidding” reproval of MoDo:


“Obama, after the speech, made a beeline for Maureen Dowd who was in the audience to tell her that he didn’t appreciate her writing about his big ears. Now, there’s a lot of noise here and it’s very muddy. I’ll translate it for you, but here’s how it sounded.


“OBAMA (off mic): You talked about my ears, and I just want to put you on notice: I?m very sensitive about — What I told them was, I was teased relentlessly when I was a kid about my big ears.”


“DOWD (purring): We’re trying to toughen you up.”


And here?s what Rush has to say:


“Well, if he’s sensitive — stop to think about this. This is a man being lauded as the savior of the country, a presidential candidate ready to be anointed, and he can’t handle being teased about his big ears? He goes out to Maureen Dowd and says, I am putting you on notice? Is that a threat? I want to put you on notice?


“Can you imagine, like I said yesterday, let?s say something about me — I’m very sensitive about whatever it is, X, and the papers write about it and make fun of it. Can you imagine if I sought out Maureen Dowd or anybody and said, ‘You know, I?m going to put you on notice. I’ve been teased about that ever since I was a kid, and I don’t like it.’ That would be the whole column the next day about how thin-skinned I am, how I can’t take it, this and that, and I am a complainer and a whiner and I was trying to influence objective journalists and so forth. But instead, Mo Do says, ‘We’re just trying to toughen you up.’ But this is revealing at a lot of levels. It is an overt threat to go out and say, ‘I’m putting you on notice.’ I wonder what would happen if McCain did that. McCain, ‘You don’t say that about me! I’m putting you on notice, you hear, sister, you hear?’


“Can you imagine what the reaction would be if any Republican went up or any conservative went up to a member of the media and said, ‘I’m putting you on notice right now.'”


And here’s what I have to say to the sensitive senator who would like to run a country now embroiled in a difficult war on terrorism: “Ears stick out! Ears stick out! Nyeah, nyeah, nyeah, na nyeah, nyeah!”