I've been sitting here in the dark watching the world turn, watching the wondrous candidate become The Candidate, as in the 1972 Robert Redford film about the corrupting of a young hopeful. He lost me at the AIPAC speech. The "compromise" on domestic wiretapping and waffling on the war were just more red flags for a woman who has seen more than a few men disappoint (haven't we all?). Thank you, Barack Obama, for turning the entire election into an episode of Sex and the City, in which that great guy you met at the bar turns out to be just like the rest of 'em in the morning light. Just another ambitious politician who wanted to be president, and would say anything to get your vote. I thought it probably might happen. Nobody gets very far in politics in this country without hitching their wagon to the corporate elites. Months ago, when I was voicing such fears, friends insisted he was different, he was the one. He had integrity, they said. I wrote about how I was afraid he might turn out to be a rat or even a super-rat, as Holly Golightly would say. You know what's the worst thing about all this? The world really does need change. Those slogans he chanted, when he wanted our primary vote so bad, they all had resonance because they meant something—to us. Well, all I can say at this point is the same thing you tell yourself when you realize the guy was a fake, a phony, no deserver of your big hopes: you don't need him. We can change the world ourselves. We pretty much have to. And—sigh—he's still got to be better than Bush or McCain.