By ANN McFEATTERS, Scripps Howard News Service

It's kind of creepy that the network anchors are tagging along after Barack Obama on his great overseas adventure.

It's been the summer of the great tomato scare, and it's not been pretty.

People eyeing their neighbors' salsa with suspicion. Burgers without that wonderful red beefcake on top. Salads without those perky, juicy red slivers. Weeks of wondering if a chilled tomato-cucumber-cilantro mixture is a death sentence.

And all over America, one question: Why?

WASHINGTON -- Every day there is another example of how our government is broken.

The presidential candidates are so busy assuring us that they have good values, love their country and will give us cheaper energy that they have no time to talk about broken government.

WASHINGTON -- It is dawning on us that frightening gasoline prices, the demoralizing housing slump, job layoffs, drained savings accounts and higher health costs are not going away.

WASHINGTON -- Keisha Brown, 21, of Chicago, exultant after Barack Obama secured the Democratic nomination, told The Washington Post, "Everything will be different now."

Oh dear.

WASHINGTON -- Hillary Clinton could learn something from Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary who bit the hand that stopped feeding him.

McClellan came to Washington as a close aide to President George W. Bush and became his chief spokesman until a new chief of staff ushered McClellan out the door, basically suggesting he was ineffective.

WASHINGTON -- Eight out of ten Americans tell pollsters they believe the nation is on the "wrong track," an analogy born of the age of the railroad. Unfortunately, passenger trains are faster and fuller elsewhere than they are in America.

WASHINGTON -- I, for one, never want to see or hear of Barack Obama's ex-preacher again. I will not countenance scurrilous talk about how John McCain adopted his daughter. I will protest vociferously any more stupid innuendo about Obama's middle name. I may punch in the nose anyone who questions the state of the McCains' marriage.

WASHINGTON -- And so, the what-if season begins.

It's hard to believe that it's over, but for Hillary Rodham Clinton, it is. She will not be president in 2009.

How did a "sure thing" a year ago turn into a what-might-have-been today?

If the election were today, Democrats would sweep local, state and national offices -- and John McCain would be the nation's 44th president.