The word is out. I got calls from reporters about it all weekend: CNN is going to bring back "Crossfire."

Everybody wants to know: Do I think that’s a good idea or not? As a former co-host of "Crossfire," from 1996-2002, here’s my answer: That depends on which "Crossfire" you’re talking about, the real "Crossfire" or the “kiddie” version.

“Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?” — Jack Kerouac, On the Road, 1957

I’m not sure why it hasn’t caught on yet, since revolutionaries like Ron Paul have gone from outlander to center-stage hero, that an original Irish outlaw like Whitey Bolger did not claim sovereignty for South Boston.

Truth is, Whitey was motivated by a sense of tribal Southie. He could be seen as a political operative gone amok and without a plan or following. His anger is pure. But suppose Whitey had called for a separate state back then: Southie as the 51st state, or better yet, an independent entity like a redneck Switzerland, using the Rumsfeld/Kerry model.

Hillary Clinton has taken a commanding position in national politics, and as I wrote in my latest column, it would be spectacular if Bill and Hillary Clinton would work with the Clinton Global Initiative to devise major new jobs proposals.

Meanwhile, both parties should be embarrassed by the latest depressing jobs report. And Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus escalated the GOP war against women with his intellectually dishonest but highly revealing cheap-shot against Planned Parenthood that misrepresented the group's position on abortion.

James Carville says he will support the pro-Hillary super-PAC. It starts so soon because something is wrong. And the something has been wrong since 1992. Or maybe since 1968. It may not be cleared up till 2020.

As Hillary enters, National Review reports today that Newt Gingrich won’t rule out a 2016 run as well. These two, Newt and Hillary, are symbionts, like yin and yang, moon and sun, the Brontë sisters, light and dark, and Timothy Leary and G. Gordon Liddy. The question still not settled after all these years and generations is, as Alice said, "Who will be Master?"

The Washington Post reports that President Obama is pushing banks to make home loans for people who currently don’t qualify. Haven’t we been living in this bad movie for the past six years?

Obama’s idea is a Groundhog Day-like sequel where the government compels a now quasi-nationalized lending industry to give loans to people who have a history of not repaying debt. Because many of those loans are not repaid, the banks inevitably need to be bailed out by the taxpayers, and the very same government that demanded the loans be made then blames the lenders for making them. This is not conjecture; it is the history of the housing bubble and collapse.

When I heard Dr. Ben Carson, the latest rightist flavor of the minute (rightist flavors come and go in minutes these days) whine about the supposedly evil, vicious, white, liberal racists who are picking on poor Dr. Carson, I immediately thought that with Leno and Fallon competing to host NBC's "The Tonight Show," perhaps Carson was throwing his beret into the ring.

Recently, residents in all 50 states have registered secession requests from the federal government. Sixteen states are studying the creation of their own currencies. States have taken their own initiatives on gun control, abortion, the National Defense Authorization Act and other issues. Lakota Indians in The Dakotas have declared their own republic and so have a band of Vermonters. And Texas wants its gold back from the Fed. What happened? 

The Hill's A.B. Stoddard answers your questions on the prospects for gun control legislation, the sequester fallout and the debate over gay marriage.

It's always darkest before the dawn — or Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is losing his nerve.