Now, here’s a phenomenon to ponder: Audrey Hepburn’s black dress from the 1961 flick “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” just fetched $807,000 at an auction.

Now, here’s a challenge: Go to your local bank or pawn shop and offer the loan people any piece of clothing you own, or for that matter your life itself (sans property or house), and see how much you can fetch. Probably zero or next-to-zero dollars.

Bottom line: A dress from a movie is worth more than your life. Okay, at least my life; maybe you have special genes or organs worth a lot.

Moral: Sad commentary on our American value-sytems.

It’s become clear that the purpose of the Iraq Commission was to function as Harriet Miers did when liberals insisted upon a female middle-of-the-road replacement for Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court: Set up a straw nominee (commission) to placate the liberal ranters and then move on with reality. Karl Rove at work again?

Now that the Iraqi commission report has come out, splitting both sides of the argument completely down the middle, one wonders why George Mitchell, he of the baseball steroid whitewash, wasn’t in charge. This report basically gives cover to both Democrats and Republicans, who will now feel free to make hay of it to their own political ends.

The big question is: Did Dubya hate his Republican counterparts in Congress that much that he couldn’t fire Donald Rumsfeld before the election to help their chances, or did he somehow miraculously decide on the change after the election? Let’s face it. He was happy to bring down the GOPers for not having the guts to back him on domestic issues. Why not have a real opposition that can be counterpunched?

Ronald Reagan said famously to Jimmy Carter in 1980, while driving one of the final nails in the coffin of the former’s presidency, “There you go again.”

It seems Carter has never stopped “going” where he shouldn’t go, as his latest book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, blames just about every problem in the Mideast on the U.S. and Israel. Well, duh? Of course, if Israel hadn’t decided to establish a secure homeland following the Nazi holocaust and had we not supported them from the git-go, modern terrorism indeed loses its rationale. But so what? There are good alternatives to the establishment and support of Israel?

Of course, Carter, U.S. basher and hater that he and all liberals are, thinks that if we just sit down at a table and discuss things (as he did with North Korea, getting us into our current mess), everything will be fine.

I guess he wasn’t around when Munich happened, or like all liberals, has no historical memory or appreciation. Nuff said. There I go again–stating the obvious.

A radio talk show host who managed to compare Bill Clinton, former prez, and Bud Selig, current baseball commish, got this handy response from a phone caller: “Yeah, both spawned cheaters who got wealthy,” or words to that effect. I was amused. Under Clinton, we had the powerful narcotics of raw power and benign neglect of an economy about to crash all around him (he was lucky enough to hand it off to George Bush), while under Selig we had owners quaffing the narcotic of the almighty buck and players drowning in the narcotic of steroids.

I bring this up because of a tiny little notice I read in the newspaper this morning. Background first: Back when Congress (the last bastion of purity in America, for sure) got infuriated by steroid use in baseball and called players to testify, Selig finally had the cover blown off his little scheme to increase attendance and revenue with home-run displays induced by steroid abuse. So, he had to act–and act decisively he did, appointing George Mitchell (remember the Senator who felt a luxury surtax on cars, boats, planes and the like would cure the federal deficit and drive the final stake in the heart of Reaganomics?) to conduct an investigation. The little note in the paper today quoted Mitchell as saying, in essence, he couldn’t find anything out because he couldn’t force anyone to testify.

Selig must be smiling. The cover is back on the dirty little secret. Is Selig somehow related to Clinton?