Some might say that Barack Obama has better things to do than fill out his bracket for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament — let alone invite Andy Katz of ESPN to interview him about his entire picking process:

And some people, like Jeff Zeleny of The Caucus (New York Times’ political blog), might even reduce it all to a crass attempt “to increase his appeal to male voters.”  Zeleny was covering Obama as he “campaigned” at a sports bar in Charleston, West Virginia.  (By the way, isn’t it a little early to say the President is “campaigning” as opposed to, say, trying to bolster support for his budget?).

But not me — or any true basketball fan who grew up in the past thirty years.  We know that Obama is sharing his bracket with the world because …. that’s the whole point of filling out a bracket. 

Why are so many people lost in the day-to-day drama of their office pools?  It’s because they want to engage in debates and discussions — and maybe even show off their sports knowledge or instincts.  If a bracket is filled out on the middle of a forest, is it even a bracket?

So you go, Barack.  We’re with you on this one – even if you showed a conservative streak in your picking that I never want to see on the policy side of things.  Come on, we got to talk about this, your bracket has only three or four upsets.

In any case, Barack, I’ve added your bracket to our office pool — just to see how we all stack up against you — to see if you really got game.

After the latest entry in Richard Crepeau’s annually devastating catalog of the gluttonous consumer buffet that is the Super Bowl, I am still amazed that Bruuuuce Springsteen has finally agreed to play the halftime show.

But he’s not.  Speaking in an extended interview with Jon Pareles of the New York Times, he argues that it is an inevitable extension of the creative process and part of his “big tent” strategy for letting his songbook have a life of its own:

It’s not just my creation at this point, and it hasn’t been really for a long time …. I wanted it to be our creation. Once you set that in motion, it’s a large community of people gathered around a core set of values. Within that there’s a wide range of beliefs, but still you do gather in one tent at a particular moment to have some common experience, and that’s why I go there too.

Before you start thinking this is one big rationalization for selling out, realize that he has never sold his songbook for commercial purposes, and he is someone who still berates himself for little things like an association with Wal-Mart during the marketing of a recent “Greatest Hits” collection:

We were in the middle of doing a lot of things, it kind of came down and, really, we didn’t vet it the way we usually do. We just dropped the ball on it.  Given its labor history, it was something that if we’d thought about it a little longer, we’d have done something different. It was a mistake. Our batting average is usually very good, but we missed that one. Fans will call you on that stuff, as it should be.

In the context of this sense of integrity, it’s beautiful to hear Bruce talk about how the inauguration of Barack Obama has transformed that iconic songbook:

A lot of the core of our songs is the American idea: What is it? What does it mean? ‘Promised Land,’ ‘Badlands,’ I’ve seen people singing those songs back to me all over the world. I’d seen that country on a grass-roots level through the ’80s, since I was a teenager. And I met people who were always working toward the country being that kind of place. But on a national level it always seemed very far away.

And so on election night it showed its face, for maybe, probably, one of the first times in my adult life. I sat there on the couch, and my jaw dropped, and I went, ‘Oh my God, it exists.’ Not just dreaming it. It exists, it’s there, and if this much of it is there, the rest of it’s there. Let’s go get that. Let’s go get it. Just that is enough to keep you going for the rest of your life. All the songs you wrote are a little truer today than they were a month or two ago.

Only Bruce, it seems, can ride the capitalist beast, shake the dirt off and come out feeling cleaner and purer — and “truer” — than ever before.

As the nation prepares for the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States (Henry Aaron’s number, though I have not seen that referenced), I am struck by how much has been written about the changes in American society that have prepared the United States for this moment.

The New York Times today has a piece on how the fictional presidencies of Morgan Freeman and Dennis Haysbert, among others, and 50 years of various film representations, have helped Americans to imagine Obama’s breakthrough. There have been articles about how the music industry has transformed how Americans think about African Americans, and numerous comments on the significance of the civil rights movement in preparing for this moment. And there has been more than a little discussion of the role sports has played.

All of these have an element of truth to them, all have been catalytic, but none of them are singular in their power.

Over the past week I have been drawn to the events surrounding the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — past and present — and contemplating the meaning of change in that small corner of American life.

A few of you may remember that on several occasions I wrote disparagingly about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, their ownership, their fans, and the city. I explained their woeful incompetence by The Curse of Doug Williams which was visited upon them after Buc owner Hugh Culverhouse let Williams go to the USFL, refusing to pay Williams anything approaching what he was worth.

The Curse was also payback to all those Buc fans that showered Williams with racial insults every time he set foot on the field in Tampa Stadium, even though he led the Bucs to the playoffs and the NFC championship game, places the franchise had never been. It was a chorus worthy of the Klan and the lynch mobs of the old South. Williams left after the 1982 season.

By this time, Tony Dungy was beginning his career as a defensive coach in Pittsburgh where he established his reputation as one of the best defensive coaches in football. It took 15 years before Dungy was able to break the racial barrier into a head coaching position in 1996, and when he did it was in Tampa. By then Malcolm Glazer had replaced Hugh Culverhouse as owner, and Doug Williams had gone on to be the MVP of Super Bowl XXII with a record-setting performance leading the Washington Redskins over the Denver Broncos. He was the first African American quarterback to win a Super Bowl.

Dungy quickly established the Bucs as a contender and perennial playoff team. In three years, they played in the NFC championship game. Dungy coached the Bucs to more victories than any coach in their history, a feat he would duplicate in Indianapolis. However, after the 2001 season and a loss in the playoffs, he was fired.

The feeling was he couldn’t get his team over the hump offensively and win a championship. His replacement was Jon Gruden, who the Bucs hired away from the Raiders and for whom they gave up two first-round draft picks, two second-round picks, and $8 million. Gruden led the Bucs to the Super Bowl and an NFL championship the following year, becoming the youngest coach to win a Super Bowl.  As many would point out, Gruden did so with the team crafted by Tony Dungy.

As for Dungy, he was hired almost immediately by the Indianapolis Colts, who he took to the playoffs every year. Dungy was the first black coach to win a Super Bowl when, in 2007, the Colts beat the Bears, who also had a black coach — a former assistant of Dungy’s, Lovie Smith. Dungy was the winningest coach in the history of the Colts. Combined with his record in Tampa, he led his teams to 10 straight playoff appearances, and 11 playoffs in 13 years. Many of Dungy’s former assistant coaches are head coaches across the league.

Whether Dungy faced the racial taunting that Doug Williams endured I do not know, although with his success in Tampa it is hard to imagine he did. What is known is that in the past week, after Jon Gruden was fired as Bucs head coach and his successor, Raheem Morris, was named, the comments were about Morris’ age, 32. Morris is African American and there was little comment about that in reactions to his hiring.

All of this certainly points to the fact that in Tampa — once a hotbed of the Ku Klux Klan and a place that made life for an African American quarterback quite miserable — there has been some change. The NFL franchise that cast off the first African American quarterback to win a Super Bowl, and the first African American head coach to win a Super Bowl, has now hired their second African American head coach with little comment about the color of his skin.

That all of this has transpired within a week of the inauguration of Barack Obama as the first African American president of the United States is more than a simple convergence of time and place. It is also less than cause and effect. Perhaps it is one more of those small signs that there are some changes we can believe in.

PopPolitics contributor Richard Crepeau is featured in a Dallas Morning News story about Barack Obama’s omnipresence in the media.

Karen Brooks reports:

He’s on his own channel on your satellite television. He’s in MTV videos by rap and reggae artists. His ads pop up on the Web sites you read. He’s delaying a World Series game to buy a block of national TV time. And when you’re cruising down the street in your favorite racing video game, his face whizzes by on a cyber-billboard

The only place he hasn’t appeared yet is on a box of Wheaties.

Love him or hate him, and whether it helps him or hurts him, the presidential hopeful is everywhere.

“It’s stunning, isn’t it?” said Dick Crepeau, a contributor to PopPolitics.com and a professor of American cultural history at the University of Central Florida. “It’s very, very calculatingly done, and they’ve done it very well.”

Brooks enlists Crepeau and other cultural critics to look at the benefits and possible pitfalls of being “everywhere.”  While Obama has been able to reach non-traditional voters by appearing in places like a billboard within popular video games (the image above is from Burnout Paradise on Xbox 360), the McCain campaign uses the opportunity to claim, once again, that he is more “style than substance.”

Oliver Stone’s “W” opened in theaters Friday, to mixed reviews.

“History is said to repeat itself as tragedy and farce, but here it registers as a full-blown burlesque,” writes Manohla Dargis. “It says nothing new or insightful about the president, his triumphs and calamities. (As if anyone goes to an Oliver Stone movie for a reality check.) But it does something most journalism and even documentaries can’t or won’t do: it reminds us what a long, strange trip it’s been to the Bush White House.”

If the idea of watching a fictional version of the Bush presidency gives you a headache, there is an alternative. Contributor Richard C. Crepeau was invited to a critics’ screening of a new film sure to delight young and old, as well as the “undecideds.” Here’s the trailer, as Dick remembers it:

From a time not long ago, and a place far away, comes the story of a hockey mom and Arctic Circle maverick, chosen to lead a nation …

“The Unbearable Being of Lightness: The Sarah Palin Story”

Starring …
Tina Fey as Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin as Tina Fey
John McCain as Tina Fey’s Running Mate

With …
Viggo Mortenson as “Todd the Snowshoe Secessionist”
Charles Bronson as “The State Trooper in Question”
Frances McDormand as Katie Couric

And introducing …
Karl Rove as “Earmark”
and
The Bridge to Nowhere as “The Bridge to Nowhere”

Plus …
Special guest appearance by George W. Bush as “The Man Who Thinks He’s Still President,” explaining the Bush Doctrine to a distracted crowd at a hockey rink

Don’t Miss …
- Watch a hockey mom shoot living things at the Arctic Circle from a B-52 while listening to “Jonah33″ on her iPod!

- Be amazed as the foreign policy maverick re-ignites the Cold War from her front porch, after she looks into Vladimir Putin’s eyes and sees his soul!

And, for the first time anywhere …
Sarah “The Barracuda” Palin challenges Barack Obama to go one-on-one in a half-court game!

Coming soon to a theater near you …

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama met fantasy President Jed Barlet and received some fantasy advice. Bartlet’s voice really comes through at the beginning and there a few funny gems:

BARTLET That was a hell of a convention.

OBAMA Thank you, I was proud of it.

BARTLET I meant the Republicans. The Us versus Them-a-thon. As a Democrat I was surprised to learn that I don’t like small towns, God, people with jobs or America. I’ve been a little out of touch but is there a mandate that the vice president be skilled at field dressing a moose —

OBAMA Look —

BARTLET — and selling Air Force Two on eBay?

OBAMA Joke all you want, Mr. President, but it worked.

BARTLET Imagine my surprise. What can I do for you, kid?

OBAMA I’m interested in your advice.

BARTLET I can’t give it to you.

OBAMA Why not?

BARTLET I’m supporting McCain.

OBAMA Why?

BARTLET He’s promised to eradicate evil and that was always on my “to do” list.

It’s difficult to imagine the long tirade below, however justified. Maybe more Toby than Bartlet?

OBAMA The problem is we can’t appear angry. Bush called us the angry left. Did you see anyone in Denver who was angry?

BARTLET Well … let me think. …We went to war against the wrong country, Osama bin Laden just celebrated his seventh anniversary of not being caught either dead or alive, my family’s less safe than it was eight years ago, we’ve lost trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, thousands of lives and we lost an entire city due to bad weather. So, you know … I’m a little angry.

OBAMA What would you do?

BARTLET GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it.

McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too?

I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!

OBAMA Good to get that off your chest?

Before we say a final goodbye to the Republican National Convention (and the good times had by all!) let’s take a moment to spotlight news stories, columns and an open letter to the Alaskan governor that transform the “R” for Republicans into Reality.

Jesus Was a Community Organizer: Joe Klein explains, in language simple enough for Rudy Giuliani to understand, exactly what a community organizer does — and specifically what Barack Obama did. The MoJo blog has more. And the Boston Globe has a story today featuring community organizers who are none too happy about the insults.

The Mother of All Hypocrisies: Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, wrote an open letter to Sarah Palin on women’s rights that is a must read. Over at Slate, E.J. Graff explains the difference between feminism and feminine chauvinism.

In a column titled “Mirrored Ceiling,” Judith Warner asks, “Why does this woman — who to some of us seems as fake as they can come, with her delicate infant son hauled out night after night under the klieg lights and her pregnant teenage daughter shamelessly instrumentalized for political purposes — deserve, to a unique extent among political women, to rank as so ‘real’?”

Calling Out Contradictions: Kudos to Jim Kuhnhenn and Jim Drinkard of the Associated Press for putting together a handy rundown of false claims and exaggerations made at the convention. The issues covered include Obama’s tax plan, the infamous “bridge to nowhere” and Mitt Romney’s back-to-the-future moment.

Meanwhile, Ted Anthony, who covers culture and politics for the AP, notes that the Republicans want it both ways when it comes to the Palin family: “Hey, media, leave those kids alone — so we can use them as we see fit.”

Finally we turn to “The Daily Show” for a delightful exchange between Jon Stewart and Newt Gingrich on the politics of language:

They’re moving delegates around on the floor to put more women in front of the stage before Gov. Sarah Palin speaks. The gender breakdown of Republican delegates explains the need for the seat shuffle: the number of male delegates overwhelms female delegates by 2 to 1.

Speaking of gender, NPR tonight noted that the speech originally written for the vice-presidential nominee was deemed too “masculine” and was thus rewritten when Sen. John McCain selected Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

As for other demographics, in a historic shift, only 1.5 percent of the total number of delegates at the RNC are African Americans — amounting to only 36 delegates, according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. It marks a sharp drop-off from 2004, when 6.7 percent, or 167 delegates, were African American. That was the all-time high.

In contrast, at the Democratic National Convention, nearly 25 percent of the delegates were African American, and slightly more than half were women (a first). The full demographic breakdown is available here.

Back at the convention, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a former Republican presidential candidate, practically did air-quotes around community organizer to minimize Sen. Barack Obama’s experience.

Meanwhile, the current Republican mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, opted out of watching Palin’s speech. His pick tonight? Whoopi Goldberg — in “Xanadu.”

Update: The Washington Post has a front-page story on the mostly white convention.

“Once upon a time, about a month ago, Senator John McCain was mocking the celebrity of his rival, Senator Barack Obama, comparing him in a television commercial to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears,” writes Michael Cooper at The Caucus. “But on Monday Mr. McCain showed that he was not against bold-faced-types, per se, hobnobbing in company that is decidedly more Us Weekly and Billboard than Congressional Quarterly or Council on Foreign Relations in its nature.”

Daddy Yankee, John Voight and Angie Harmon are McCain fans, as is Patricia Heaton (above) — who has her own reasons for wanting to see McCain take the White House:

“I was a little disappointed in not being able to introduce Cindy, as was originally planned, as she is a beer heiress and I’m Irish Catholic,’’ she said, according to a pool report, drawing laughs from the crowd. “I have a vested interest in seeing her become first lady so I get invited to those White House keg parties.”

Fox has more of Heaton’s remarks:

“As an actor I recognize that our opponent, someone who thinks that if he puts on the right costume and stands on the right set, that we will all believe that he is presidential material but John McCain doesn’t have to pretend because he walks the walk,” Heaton said during her introduction of the presumptive GOP nominee at a McCain Sacramento fundraiser.

Heaton, an award-winning actress best known for her role as Ray Romano’s wife on the hit series “Everybody Loves Raymond,” said McCain is more in touch with the concerns of regular Americans than his rival. She specifically cited the contrasting images Obama in Berlin “giving his blessing in messianic fashion to thousands of adoring Germans” and McCain talking to voters in a supermarket aisle.

“You know what I thought when I saw that photo? I thought, ‘yeah baby, we are going to win this election.’ Because I am in the cheese aisle in the grocery store a lot more often than when I am in Berlin and so are most other Americans,” Heaton added.

But is she in the cheese aisle as much as she’s on the golf course? Or in England?

As we wait for Barack Obama to announce his vice-presidential running mate, everyone is having a bit too much fun with the fact that anyone can sign up to be “the first to know” — through a text message (text “VP” to 62262) or e-mail sent directly from the Obama campaign.

Our friend Deanna Zandt over at GRITtv introduced me today to the concept of “rickrolling” (as in Rick Astley — you gotta follow that link) and the variety of fake Twitter and text messages that purport have The Answer.

And Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune confesses that the whole process is making her feel like she is back in high school:

I think it would be totally awesome if John texted me his vp choice too. But John has made minus-zero effort to court me the newfangled way.

Is it my fault John doesn’t text? He’ll probably name his vp at something totally 20th Century, like a news conference. Don’t blame me if he’s not a good communicator.

Barack, see, he understands my needs. He makes me feel special. He let me know he wanted my cell number. Wanted it bad. I was, like, totally flattered.

And after I texted him my info—btw, his number’s 62262—he texted a reply:

“Welcome to Obama Mobile. You will now be one of the 1st notified when the VP candidate is selected. Text HELP for help. Std charges apply. Please forward.”

Charges? I was not thrilled to see this relationship was going to cost me $$ but whatever. Life is not a freebie Valentine. At least he wrote back.

So who is it going to be? John Lumea over at Huffington Post argues for some unconventional VP wisdom.

We love dogs here at PopPolitics. And we love Best Friends Animal Society — a great organization that rescues and cares for the neediest of animals, especially dogs.

So when Best Friends asks us to send a message to Senator Obama, we’ll give it serious consideration.

In this case, they are responding to news that Obama has promised his daughters a new puppy after the election — and the American Kennel Club polled “AKC experts” to determine what pure-bred breed would be the best match.

Here’s the start to Best Friends’ petition — which they are promoting on ObamaFamilyDog.com:

If Sen. Barack Obama becomes president, he’ll instantly be faced with decisions that will affect millions of Americans. Obama will also soon be making a decision that could affect millions of American dogs. It has been reported that once the election is over, the Obamas will be looking for a new four-legged family member (much to his daughters’ delight).

The American Kennel Club (AKC) has suggested five types of purebred dogs that would fit the Obamas’ lifestyle. While we don’t disagree that it’s important to choose a dog that matches well with the family, mixed breeds should certainly be considered along with pure breeds. Also, whether purebred or mutt, we believe the Obamas should make a winning choice and adopt a family dog, not buy one.

In America’s shelters, millions of dogs are killed each year, in large part because there aren’t enough families for them. For a candidate focused on “hope” and “change,” adopting a homeless pet is the right choice. Win or lose, this is an opportunity for Obama to effect change on this very important issue.

From my perspective, how you treat the neediest around might say more about your character than any policy position.

I posted last week about on the power of rumors in this year’s presidential campaign — about how this old-fashioned tactic has taken on new meaning in the digital age. Two subsequent articles have done a great job of explaining the reasons why and how rumors work.

In a New York Times op-ed, Sam Wang and Sandra Aamodt, experts on how the brain processes memory, discuss how a false rumor — such as that Barack Obama, a Christian, is a Muslim — is very hard to get out of your mind, even after you have been presented with and recognize the truth. Scary stuff:

The brain does not simply gather and stockpile information as a computer’s hard drive does. Facts are stored first in the hippocampus, a structure deep in the brain about the size and shape of a fat man’s curled pinkie finger. But the information does not rest there. Every time we recall it, our brain writes it down again, and during this re-storage, it is also reprocessed. In time, the fact is gradually transferred to the cerebral cortex and is separated from the context in which it was originally. For example, you know that the capital of California is Sacramento, but you probably don’t remember how you learned it.

This phenomenon, known as source amnesia, can also lead people to forget whether a statement is true. Even when a lie is presented with a disclaimer, people often later remember it as true.

It’s a mind-opening read.

And from another angle, Matthew Mosk of the Washington Post discusses the latest work on political rumors by Danielle Allen at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton (yeah, it’s the free-wheeling genius think tank that was once the research home of Albert Einstein). Allen, an expert in the “the way voters in a democracy gather their information and act on what they learn,” became obsessed with how the rumor of Obama being a Muslim — specifically, the chain e-mail about it that became viral — began and spread.

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This election year, instead of dreaded “swiftboating,” the chief Republican campaign tactic is rather old-fashioned: rumors. Granted, rumors take on a whole new meaning in the digital age, but they work by the same word-of-mouth method they always have.

I was heartened by the fact that the Obama campaign saw this new/old reality and decided to enter the fray, instead of hoping it all goes away. They created a website — Fight the Smears — that attempts to counter every “smear” with “the truth.”

Unfortunately, the site is rather lame. It should be a daily blog that acts as a watchdog of the media coverage, but instead, its static feel and lack of updated content gives interested readers no reason to return.

Better to rely on independent sources such as Michelle Obama Watch — which has the grassroots type of energy that the Obama campaign has, until now, displayed itself.

Or, maybe take the satirical advice of Christopher Beam at Slate, who lists a series of alternative rumors that he thinks the Obama campaign should actively encourage. Here’s some of my favorites from the fairly long list:

Barack Obama goes to church every morning. He goes to church every afternoon. He goes to church every evening. He is IN CHURCH RIGHT NOW [...]

Barack Obama’s skin is the color of AMERICAN SOIL.

Barack Obama buys AMERICAN STUFF. He owns a FORD, a BASEBALL TEAM, and a COMPUTER HE BUILT HIMSELF FROM AMERICAN PARTS. He travels mostly by FORKLIFT.

Barack Obama says that Americans cling to GUNS and RELIGION because they are AWESOME.

Via Daily Kos, a must-watch. And just in case you have any doubts, there really is a Sen. John Cornyn from Texas and he used this video to introduce himself at the Republican state convention:

Yes, it’s just plain silly. But it’s also a hyperbolic presentation of a very real masculinity narrative that the Republicans have capitalized on in the last few election cycles.

I’ve already talked a bit about how defying this narrative might be Barack Obama’s most revolutionary act.

Of all the images from Tuesday’s historic night, this simple, intimate fist pump is the most striking:

BagnewsNotes, of course, is all over it, appreciating “Michelle’s proud, private, knowing, understated, intimate and unselfconscious expression, as well as the lack of tension in each partner’s body.”

Not only does it show the Obamas and their relationships in a good light, though, it also points the way toward victory in November.

Barack Obama’s greatest asset is his likability, and the genuine affection that he and Michelle seem to feel for each other just adds to it. In a moment like the one above — or maybe in the moment immediately following it, when he turns his smile to us — the entire audience feels like we are his friends and partners, because we can see that the “real” Barack is not so different from our own confidantes. He and Michelle demonstrate an intimacy that’s infectious.

And that’s different from Bill Clinton’s Bubbha persona or George W. Bush’s “regular guy” routine — because those were more self-conscious personal performances — clearly public gestures of sorts. The moments we have between Barack and Michelle, while certainly performances on some level as well, at least feel like extensions of a private life.

Their relationship reminds me of another inspiring political couple, John and Abigail Adams:

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