Trump, Bachmann, Perry…and, on the horizon, Chris Christie. Republicans are using up frontrunners like disposable tissues, evoking a personal memory.

FDR was inaugurated on March 4, 1933, my ninth birthday. In 1945 I was a 21-year-old foot soldier sleeping on the floor of a German farmhouse shaken awake to hear that the only president I could remember was dead.

Our world now manufactures public figures like Kleenex and, in this turbulent year, gives us no time to learn much about them before they vanish. Rick Perry, who came out of the box only weeks ago, is still bickering with Mitt Romney over what they said in their books as the 24/7 media toilet starts to flush.

Now the New Jersey governor who said no months ago is starting to say maybe, and what are the odds on His Hugeness standing next to tiny Michele Bachmann on a debate stage soon?

The person with a finger on the nuclear button is being decided in a process that makes “American Idol” look like the deliberations of the Supreme Court, to which the winner of this talent contest could be nominating new members.

MORE.