The oPod.

It was probably inevitable that someone would get this story and the parsing would begin shortly thereafter, but the Telegraph has the goods on the burning question that everyone is dying to find an answer for:

What's on Barack Obama's iPod?

I tend to agree with Althouse with the notion that this is a remarkably crafted iPod. You have all the greatest hits for a wide variety of music- about the only genre missing is country music- and I agree with Althouse in that the one genuinely interesting pick is probably Earth, Wind and Fire.

Personally, I think it's an iPod. Why does every single aspect of a candidate's life have to be so damn scripted? Why can't we have a single moment of truth about what someone really likes musically- and why can't people just let be. Not everyone has the same taste in music, so for the love of pete, just deal. I make no apologies for what's on my iPod and I certainly wouldn't censor myself if I was running for office. Of the 3,384 songs on my iPod right now, I can't say I'd want to delete a single one.

OK, some of them are pretty weird- casualties of my downloading specific things to put on CDs for people (Beer for My Horses by Toby Keith, for instance) and some are just songs I genuinely like. (Yes, I liked Asyln. So sue me. It was a catchy song.)

So if I was in Obama's shoes, I'd probably gleefully leak to the press my love of punk: The Clash, The Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys, Rancid, Green Day- funk: P-Funk, George Clinton, Curtis Mayfield, Coldplay, Genesis and Fall Out Boy. Give people a chance to really parse my musical taste and not just construct a carefully made iPod so as not to offend people by saying things like 'hardcore gangsta rap just isn't my thing.'