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Comedian Bill Maher was on Larry King on Monday night, just before the Super Tuesday primaries. They talked about the Obama “phenomenon“:

MAHER: I just think there’s something there that we haven’t seen in decades — you know, people getting involved who never got involved before. He’s stirring something. You know, he got like 14,000 people in Idaho or some place where there’s only 12,000 Democrats. He got 14,000 to come to a stadium. And, you know, it’s something that’s — it’s beyond politics. And that’s, I think, what a lot of this country has been looking for.

In the last presidential election, I think, the figure is 79 million people who could have voted and did not. Those are the people, I think, who are getting involved. And I’ve said this before, I think if the people who don’t vote voted, those are basically liberal voters. Conservatives tend to be squares, and I don’t say that in a derisive way — they’re just the kind of people who get up early and vote. And liberals tend to be in a nightclub at night or, you know, they’re — they’re younger, they’re poorer. They’re perhaps more self- involved — they’re a lot of things, but I think if there was mandatory voting, if someone went to everybody’s apartment and grabbed you by the scruff of your neck and said “You have to pick somebody, now get in there and pick,” I think you’d find out that this country is lot more liberal than people realize.

Responding to a videotaped question, Maher talked about what racial politics and the country’s response to Obama:

VIDEO QUESTIONER: Who do you think middle America is more ready for? A white woman or a black man as president?

MAHER: It depends on what you mean by middle America. That’s a broad term. I always think America, if you scratch the surface, they’re more liberal than you think, especially the younger people, who may be actually voting this time. If by middle America you mean the South, no. I think there’s still residual racism in the south, but not, again, as much as people think.

But, yes, I think they’re more ready for a woman.

But not this black man. That black man doesn’t strike them as such a black man. I always say, he’s like the Halle Berry of politics. For hundreds of years, people were like, “I wouldn’t go near a black woman, but boy, I would kiss Halle Berry. I think I would make an exception for her.”

KING: We’ve never really had anyone like him.

MAHER: Never. It’s a phenomenon. You cannot recruit a phenomenon. As long as you have it, you may as well take advantage of it, Democrats.

On Hillary Clinton:

I do think that if she got the job, she’d be an extremely capable executive and it would be, you know, light years better than what we have now. But I just think that we’re at a point in our history where we need to hear the words, “And now for something completely different.” We want that breath of fresh air, just like 1960.

(The linked video has only part of the interview. The transcript has errors, but appears to be complete.)

He spent it, all right.

I read the news today, oh boy — that NASA will observe its 50th anniversary on Monday by beaming a Beatles song toward Polaris, the North Star. The song, of course, is “Across the Universe,” but the 431 light years to Polaris isn’t even across the galaxy. Gotta start somewhere.

NASA launched the first U.S. satellite, Explorer 1, on January 31, 1958, and that’s the anniversary which is being celebrated.

While we’re celebrating, let’s take a moment to remember the crew of the space shuttle Columbia, which broke apart on re-entry five years ago today.

Let’s remember the crew of the shuttle Challenger, which exploded shortly after launch on January 28, 1986 — 22 years ago last Monday.

And let’s remember the crew of Apollo 1, lost on January 27, 1967 — 41 years ago last Sunday. They died in a fire in the spacecraft during a “routine” test on the launch pad. Nothing is “routine” when you’re testing the limits of humans and their machines.

Apollo 1: Gus Grissom, Ed White, Roger Chaffee

Challenger: Francis Scobee, Michael Smith, Judith Resnik, Ellison Onizuka, Ronald McNair, Gregory Jarvis, Christa McAuliffe

Columbia: Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson, Ilan Ramon, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark

John Glenn, at a memorial service for Judith Resnik:

We hoped these past few days would never come. And for nearly a quarter of a century we pushed back the time we knew — intuitively — must sometime be, that day when despite all our best efforts, there would be a loss.

…

It has been my observation that the happiest of people, the vibrant doers of the world are almost always those who are using — who are putting into play, calling upon, depending upon — the greatest number of their God-given talents and capabilities. For them, curiosity is a way of life, and the quest for knowledge and the new is insatiable and exhilarating.

But it becomes many-fold more meaningful when put to use for a higher purpose, for something bigger than self, for a goal that calls on those individuals to dictate themselves to accomplishment for the betterment of our nation, and indeed for all mankind.

Let’s not forget all those, living and dead, who have given — and are still giving — their best for a higher purpose.

Political cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz observed George W. Bush’s final State of the Union address with an urgent message from Uncle Sam.