Hence, we read that women like Barack best (except when they don’t). This week, a New York Times/CBS News poll shows women tilting toward Mitt and voters overall favoring him by 46 percent to 43 percent. But you know how girls are. A month ago, according to a CNN/ORC poll, women loved Obama 55 percent to 39 percent. Next week, check your Magic 8-Ball.

One, Barack Obama is an evolutionary, 21st-century hero who supports equality for all.

Two, Mitt Romney is a gay-bashing bully mired in the previous century who also supports a war on women and, oh yeah, hates dogs.

Such is the scenario suggested by a new study projecting that 42 percent of American adults will be obese by 2030. That’s 32 million more than today’s 78 million. Of course, they probably won’t be waddling. They’ll be in their cars in the fast-food lane, as they are now. Recall that independent filmmaker Morgan Spurlock (“Super Size Me”) gained 24.5 pounds after one month of eating exclusively at McDonald’s.

Doubtless you’ve heard plenty by now of President Obama’s slow jam, which, for all you drips out there, refers to a rhythm-and-blues ballad or down-tempo song. You, too, can find this on Wikipedia.

What president flies purposefully into the eye of a perfectly awful, two-front political storm, especially one as sordid as that plaguing North Carolina this week? Obama’s arrival in the Tar Heel State coincided with former senator John Edwards’s trial, as well as an exploding sexual harassment scandal involving the state’s Democratic Party leader. Jay Parmley recently resigned as executive director of the state party after an employee accused him of showing him a lewd photograph and making inappropriate sexual remarks.

Ollie rides shotgun.

Thus, the story of Seamus, the Romneys’ dog who famously rode atop the family car in a crate en route to vacation (to Ontario, Canada, 12 hours away) — and suffered acute gastrointestinal inconvenience, requiring a mid-trip hose-down — has caused me considerable distress. I know Mitt and Ann Romney to be lovely people who undoubtedly adored their dog, but how does one make this event seem less awful?

Thus, when consultant/pundit/Democrat Hilary Rosen commented on CNN that Ann Romney had never held a job (and therefore was ill-suited to advise her husband on women’s employment concerns), the body politic convulsed in paroxysms of outrage.

In fact, it’s very likely that the person who recently started a rumor about South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) was trying to create that idiot’s delight — “buzz” — for his blog. Or whatever little virtual temple he had erected to himself.

The image suggested came from none other than his wife, Ann, when a Baltimore radio interviewer asked whether it’s true that her husband is stiff. Yes, do go ahead and cover the children’s eyes.

Most appalling, obviously, is the fatal shooting of an unarmed 17-year-old, targeted by a 28-year-old volunteer neighborhood watchman. George Zimmerman thought Martin seemed “suspicious” and followed him for a while before Martin allegedly attacked him.

As the sun rises and dabs Caesars Palace with morning rouge, irony struts down the strip of casinos, shops and nightclubs.

What better place to contemplate moderation, the topic of a panel and my purpose for being here, than in the epicenter of human excess? The Black Mountain Institute (at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas) posed this question to a panel of three, which also included Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute and Fox News’s Juan Williams: “Is moderation possible in American politics?”

Most of us, perhaps regrettably, do not get to select our own names and are saddled with our parents’ projections of what we might be. It is entertaining to consider what name we might select for ourselves and what that name might suggest about us. Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum recently got this chance when they selected their Secret Service code names.

In the wake of “Slutgate,” the operative argument seems to have devolved into a barnyard taunt: “My pig isn’t as bad as your pig.”

You know the ones — the folks who drive trucks, hunt deer (and even varmints, if they’re in the mood for a little chicken-fried squirrel) and, yes, put cheese in their grits. The latter is hardly a redneck pursuit these days, however, as grits have become the side dish du jour in the swankiest restaurants.

Translation: So could we shut up already about contraception?

This is what I want to say: Pay no attention to that man in the bow tie. Just because George Will says something doesn’t make it so. Just because he has written you off as unable to defeat President Obama, don’t believe it. This isn’t over.

Indeed, he has united decent people of all stripes and persuasions with his vile remarks about a Georgetown University law student.

Perhaps it is on account of such a long primary season, but the more they talk, the tastier their feet. While Mitt Romney is merely guilty of saying things that make him seem disconnected from the lives of most Americans, Rick Santorum makes ideological statements that make him appear to be disconnected from the present tense.

The prospect of four more years of President Barack Obama holds some appeal for many Americans but probably not for most Republicans. It may give doubters among them some comfort, however, to know that Obama and Santorum share the same prayer: that Santorum be the Republican nominee.

This is the latest trope to evolve from a campaign that is already two years too long. A conspiracy-minded person might imagine that this faux battle over reproductive rights was designed to distract from other more pressing concerns and to demonize — or would that be angelize? — Republicans who, we’re also told, want to turn back the clock to the 1950s.

This has become the question du jour among scholars, journalists and others who fret about such things at dozens of programs popping up around the country. As a nation, we seem to want to be a more civil society, which is laudable if, quite possibly, unlikely.

The so-called “teachable moment” about combining booze and drugs, it seems to me, misses the point. The more important question is: Why do people medicate themselves to such an extent? And even more compelling, what role does the public (and its drug dealer, the media) play in these unravelings?

Parting with one’s dreams isn’t only sweet sorrow, it also can be liberating. Beneath the sorrow and alongside the liberation, one finds not only peace but often oneself.

The more compelling questions concern a person’s or an institution’s freedom of conscience and the right to act upon one’s moral beliefs without fear of intimidation and/or government coercion.

People can’t identify with perfection, he said. For the character to be sympathetic, he needs to have a flaw. He needs an injury or a wound of some sort so that people can identify with and care about him.

“We know absolutely nothing about this rumor except what six people told us anonymously about this guy who they say sexually assaulted this girl. We don’t know who she is or what she said, or really anything, but here’s HIS name and what ‘they’ say about him.”

In Monday’s debate, Mitt Romney charged Gingrich with “influence-peddling.” But Gingrich insists that he was merely working as a historian when he collected $1.6 million from Freddie Mac over a six-year period. Which, in some version of reality, could be true. Broadly speaking, a historian who is hired to dig ditches is still a historian.

Like every woman I know, black or white, I’ve watched Mrs. Obama with respect, admiration and arm-envy. Every woman. We talk about her unique role in American history, and we are proud and impressed. I’ve interviewed a former first lady’s chief of staff, various Republican operatives, and former staffers for previous presidents, and without exception, they all say the same thing: “I admire her so much.”

The vast majority of it is on the plate of the man who coined the phrase — Newt Gingrich. Not that he’s dining alone. Gingrich first tossed the holy lunch meat on the counter during one of the New Hampshire debates after Mitt Romney tried to aver that he never set out to be a career politician. He was a businessman first, he said, who found his way to politics.

Who can throw the first punch in a tight race growing tighter?

This is why God made Newt Gingrich. The formerly self-anointed “nice guy,” the one who wasn’t going to go negative, has flip-flopped on protocol. Insisting that he lost Iowa to these lesser mortals because of Romney’s negative ads, he has declared that he’ll no longer make nice.

Until now, the flawlessly coiffed Callista has been granted a fairly generous berth in the public arena. By some unspoken agreement, it seemed unseemly to dwell on the past. The Gingriches have been admirably forthcoming about the transgressions that preceded their marriage, and they’ve sought forgiveness in both the religious and temporal realms. Voters either will look beyond the former House speaker’s personal history or they won’t. At some point, even a public person’s past is no one’s business. Call it a statute of limitations on human frailty.

Rarely has such a small, innocuous, truth-based remark garnered so much attention from the chattering classes as Mitt Romney’s proposed $10,000 bet with Rick Perry during this past weekend’s Republican primary debate.

Republicans apparently want to nominate anyone except the one person who can defeat Barack Obama. And for all the strangest reasons:

Just four weeks out from the Iowa caucuses, Gingrich — swinging like a trapeze artist over the heads of his fellow Republican contenders — has done what everyone knew he would, said something mind-blowingly wrong. Not just wrong as in incorrect but off-the-charts insensitive, insulting and, most important, Out. Of. Touch.

The Republican voter is like a starving man at a free buffet. He gorges on this, then that, then spies a steaming plump pork roast at the far end of the table. Charge! (No anatomical parallels intended. I’m a little hungry myself.)

The truth is, everyone has always known who the Republican nominee will be, but we enjoy the game. For a while. By now, self-caricature has evolved into full-blown self-mockery, and the debate season has begun to wear thinner than an unmanly man’s pizza crust.

“Republicans used to admire intelligence. But now they’re dumbing themselves down,” was the subhead.

Undoubtedly countless men have pondered this question the past several days. The query got trickier when feminist attorney Gloria Allred presented a fourth woman — in person — to allege a past sexual transgression involving the former pizza executive.