Those in the political know (read: those with an IQ above the level of pocket lint) have long regarded the continual presidential machinations of Dennis Kucinich as entirely laughable. Outside of marginal publications, his unending campaign trail is worthy of at best scant mention, and at worst outright scorn. And yet here we are, some 13 months away from election day, and what has The Stranger chosen to publish as its feature story this week? A 4,000-word article on... the campaign of Dennis Kucinich. The fact that said piece has been penned by ELI SANDERS (who's never met a word count he hasn't exceeded) and DAN SAVAGE (who has zero political acumen—unless inane stunts involving firearms and marijuana now constitute civics) certainly doesn't help matters any. Attention Sanders and Savage: If Americans wanted to read about such folly as Kucinich '08, they would pick up the rags being hocked by myriad bedraggled hippie burnouts on street corners across the country. Until that bleak day, if you must wade into the complicated muck of national politics, please confine your output to candidates who actually matter—or barring that, at least keep your scribbling to a reasonable word count. The youth of today already find politics interminably boring, after all. Must you add insult upon national injury?

Elsewhere in this week's travesty, The Stranger's crack news squad tackles such pressing topics as KUOW radio (speaking of bedraggled hippie burnouts) and condo conversions. The former will most likely be chalked up as yet another example of this paper making a petty attack on the other media in town, though the article itself happens to be surprisingly decent. The latter, on the other hand, is little more than a pet project of this paper (see also: monorail), which long ago pushed its prodensity agenda past hysterical levels. Despite the reams of paper squandered on the subject, however, one suspects all it will take is for a single staffer's rat hole to become targeted for conversion and density will quickly make the transition from boon to a scourge. Idealism, after all, is but a prop for this paper.

Finally, this week's film section contains a mammoth article by SEAN NELSON, in which the one-time film editor/associate editor bloviates at great length about music documentaries—or something. To be honest, I was unable to finish reading the article due to my inability to read through my eyelids. Still, Mr. Nelson is nothing if not literate, or at least passably so, and given that any piece of his published takes valuable real estate away from the legion of mouth-breathers this paper routinely deems print worthy, his appearance in these pages can only be counted as a positive.