It was going so well for Democratic presidential hopeful Dean. His campaign was Internet-fuelled, relying on bloggers and Deaniac street teams to spread an anti-war, pro-healthcare message. But after his defeat in the Iowa primaries, the Vermont governor delivered a rousing speech that sounded closer to a WWE wrestling challenge than the Oval Office message. His stock fell faster than the leaves during the New England foliage season.

In February, a queer kind of revolution erupted. San Francisco's new mayor Gavin Newsome began offering marriage licenses to same sex couples, contravening California law stating that marriage could only exist between a man and a woman. Even Rosie O'Donnell got hitched. A court later ruled against him, but the Pandora's Box had been opened - and gay marriage became a hot button topic for conservatives and liberals alike.

Maybe it wasn't Dubya's intention to invade Iraq "for the oil." But in spite of the army sitting on enough crude to keep a fleet of SUVs running into the next millennium, Middle East strife has sent gas prices soaring. In September, they zoomed past $55 a barrel, and you might pay $2.45 per gallon at a California pump. We've heard some banks are offering fuel loans to get you from one side of town to the other.

Fed up with right wing gasbags' airwave saturation, funnyman Al Franken put memories of the Stuart Smalley movie behind him and reinvented himself as lead pundit for a leftist-liberal radio network. Compatriots such as Janeane Garofalo, Chuck D and Randi Rhodes also showed that they, too, could be louder than a bomb. Despite a rocky start, Franken's show now outdraws recent sexual-harassment defendant Bill O'Reilly in New York.

Bruce Springsteen has always been wary about aligning with a political party. Even 2002's 'The Rising' addressed 9/11's emotional fallout without riding elephant or donkey. That changed when he and other activist artists took their Vote for Change tour through swing states, advocating domestic regime change. "We've been misled," he told Rolling Stone. "Sitting on the sidelines would be a betrayal of the ideas I'd written about for a long time."

To some, Michael Moore is as smarmy as he is sincere. But Fahrenheit 9/11 was cry from the heart, plain and simple. Tracing the history of Bush infamy from hanging chads in Florida to reading My Pet Goat while New York burned to sinking in an Iraqi quagmire, Moore was disarmingly passionate. His rage was contagious: The film has become the most successful documentary of all time.

The King of All Media's throne wobbled when Clear Channel took him off the air and the FCC levied hefty fines on his scatological wisecracks. Quick to cast himself as a victim, Stern said he was being persecuted for his anti-Bush stance. He, however, had the last yuk, mobilizing his fan-base behind John Kerry and signing a $500 million contract with satellite radio, where you're free to talk about hooters and hotties until you're blue in the face.

Bubba finally told all, sorta, in his memoir My Life. Regarding Monica? It turns out he did the wild thing in the Oval Office because, simply, he could. The door-stopping bestseller exhausted most readers by page 654; the charismatic Arkansas boy sure is longwinded. Seems like the only rest he's gotten since birth is his recuperation after this summer's quadruple bypass.