ABC News is announcing that Zarqawi has been killed in Iraq in a bombing raid.

Really.

Not sure how many legs the victim had, but that's a riddle best left forgotten, I suppose.

Let's hope this death helps to reduce the level of violence in Iraq.  (Although ABC is stressing most violence attributed to sectarian violence and not Zarqawi, but still...)

It goes without saying that, should Kerry pull this out, he has many people to thank.  As discussed in a previous diary, Howard Dean is pretty clearly high on the list.

Here are some others who might also be high in contention:

Jon Stewart
Howard Stern
Richard Clark
Nancy Pelosi
Sy Hersh
Michael Moore
Eminem
George Soros
MoveOn.org
ACT

Anyone got others of significance to add to this list?  (Arguably one could add Osama bin Laden, but let's not go there, shall we?)

I'm slightly enthused by Edwards, irritated but resigned to Gephardt, but I'd be really rocked if there was an inspiring out-of-left-field choice. And I'm not saying it has to be Dean, by the way, since I'm not sure that's actually the best career move for Dean himself. However, there was a very intriguing article in The New York Magazine this morning which had something of a tease in it:

No one could have imagined, given the bitterness of the Dean-Kerry contest, that the two men might actually end up liking one another. "Kerry was astonished when he called me after the election and I said I'd support him," says Dean. "He's a great person. I like him. I'm a pro." "Kerry talks to all the '04s, but a lot of it's pro forma," a longtime Kerry staffer says. "With Dean, he's looking for real tactical advice. They've found they have a lot in common." After all, these two Yale-educated East Coast men with elite pedigrees have more similarities with each other than with, say, son-of-a-mill-worker John Edwards and son-of-a-milk-truck-driver Dick Gephardt. While Dean won't discuss his conversations with Kerry, many believe his advice is to tear a page from Dean's own playbook and focus on energizing the Democratic base rather than going after swing voters. Dean says,"I think Ralph Nader is the single biggest obstacle to keep John Kerry from being elected president."

It's an excellent article that's well worth reading if only for the front page photo and intro paragraph alone. And also for this hilarious post-candidate job offer:

Rather than poring over polling data and vetting potential running mates, he's pondering offers for celebrity endorsements: So far, Dean has turned down TV ads for a submarine-sandwich chain and come close to doing an Herbal Essences shampoo commercial. "I drove my staff crazy with the Herbal Essences ad," Dean says. "I wanted to know everything about it."

Can anyone else imagine a commercial scene of Dean in the shower and instead of going "ooooohhhhh, aaahhhhh", he ends up screaming "yeeeeaaaarrrgggh!"