Liberal Talk Radio

Shorter William Safire predictions without that silly multiple choice convention (speaking of which, would it kill him to tell us in advance that “none of the above” or “all of the above” are options? Sheesh!):

• U.S. troops in Iraq at 2006 year’s end will number 80,000 or below.
• Speaker of the House succeeding Dennis Hastert will be Mike Pence.
• Best-picture Oscar to Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain.”
• The Robertscalito court will disengage from involvement in states’ redistricting in the Texas case; go the other way in Oregon, holding that federal power to prohibit substances trumps a state’s authority to permit physician-assisted suicide; decide that federal funds can be denied to law schools that prohibit military recruitment on campus; uphold McCain-Feingold, enabling Congress to restrict political contributions but not expenditures; and reassert citizens’ Fourth Amendment protection from “security letters” and warrantless surveillance.
• Nonfiction sleeper best seller will be “In Search of Memory,” by Nobelist Eric Kandel.
• Fiction surprise will be “Eye Contact” by Cammie McGovern.
• Israel-Palestine affected by political split in successful Hamas, Mahmoud Abbas naming jailed Marwan Barghouti his Fatah successor, and dieter Arik Sharon’s centrist Kadima party winning big in March and forming coalition with Labor.
• Government report most likely to resist investigative reporting will be both special prosecutor David Barrett’s 400-page exposé of political influence within the Internal Revenue Service and Clinton Justice Departmen and the 36-page report by the Senate Intelligence Committee about the 2000 terrorist attack on the destroyer Cole, cleared for release by the C.I.A. but suppressed by the Senate.
• Stock market will finally reflect sustained 4 percent G.D.P. growth by Dow breaking through 12,000.
• In Iraqi politics nationalist Iraqis and bridging Kurds will achieve a loose confederation and create a Muslim brand of democracy.
• None of the following will be vote-changing domestic issues in this year’s U.S. elections: wiretapping and computer intrusions on privacy; extending reductions of dividend, capital-gains and estate taxes and reducing alternative minimum tax; growth in economic inequality and need for pension protection; or journalist jailing by the new leak-plumbers.
• Thinking outside the ballot box - the dark-horse line for the 2008 presidential race will pit domestic centrists and foreign-policy hardliners Hillary (”You’re a Grand Old Flag”) Clinton against Condi (”I am not a lawyer”) Rice.
• Conventionally, inside the box, Hillary vs. John McCain.
• As Bush approval rises, historians will begin to equate his era with that of Truman.

Kind of boring, but this way you don’t have to flip the newspaper back and forth . . .

As for me, I have never been good at prognosticating, but I have a hunch about one thing in particular: Working on its own — without the blessing or knowledge of any state security or intelligence apparatus — the Fox Network will catch Osama bin Laden . . . and pair him with Kiefer Sutherland for Day 6 of the hit show, 24. The nation’s collective thirst for blood will be sated as the writers concoct scenarios in which Jack Bauer tortures UBL in order to move along various plot points. After the finale, bin Laden will be turned over to the U.S. government to stand trial.