Thought I had established way better than six degrees of separation from Barack Obama when an ex-student told me she knew Bernardine Dohrm when living in Chicago - Dohrm is the wife of William Ayers, the professor of education who was (with Bernardine) a member of the Weather Underground and the "terrorist" with whom wannabe torturer-in-chief Palin accuses Barack Obama of "palling around" with. But then I learned that a scholar who's teaching a course for us next semester used to babysit for the Obamas (when they had only one child). How many degrees of separation is that now, one or two?