"The satirist in me cries out for a McCain-Palin administration. This would be an embarrassment of riches," Christopher Buckley, famed wit and son of William F., tells me. Alas, he's a reluctant Obamacon--"I think he has a first-class temperament" --even though he fears that a Barack Obama presidency will be "boring." Trying to cheer himself up, he allows that Joe Biden will probably provide some "comic fodder."

If Buckley seems worried, that's because he has a new book to write. An amazingly prolific novelist ("I've got a mortgage to pay"), he's just published his 13th book, Supreme Courtship, and already has another on the way, Losing Mum and Pup, a tribute to his parents. He needs a new subject--fast.