He may have been a poor man when he left the White House, but he’s a rich man now. The Washington Post reports that Bill Clinton has earned $40 million from speeches in the last six years — at $150,000 a clip. That makes him a very rich man, indeed, and that’s driving some conservatives nuts. Read more...

There were a number of Democratic candidates for president who were secretly smiling last week. Why? The fight between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama over the nasty comments from Hollywood mogul David Geffen provided an opening for the rest of the field, especially if that negativity continues over the coming months.

The dangers for Clinton and Obama become an opportunity for others to come up the side. The more the two of them battle each other throughout the year, the greater the likelihood that we will see a repeat of the 2004 Democratic caucus in Iowa. Read more...

I’ve previously written in this space that our friends and allies are watching the posturing and listening to the debate in the U.S. Congress regarding the American commitment to remain in Iraq. I've noted that the “pull the troops out now” politicians are emboldening the enemy as their defeatist words reinforce the impression that America will cut and run when the going gets tough. Thank goodness we had stronger politicians around during World War II; I can only imagine today’s liberal elements advocating withdrawal after American forces suffered 19,000 losses after the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. (Many of the casualties were suffered, I might add, due to a failure in Allied intelligence to accurately project Axis forces. I don’t recall the opposition party claiming that FDR had falsified intelligence to go to war, but I digress.) Read more...

The Clinton campaign has loudly touted the supposedly amazing direct-mail list that Hillary built up during her virtually unopposed Senate race — at a cost of $30 million.

But maybe it wasn’t such a great investment after all. Read more...

Over the weekend the Washington Post ran a story about how Hillary Clinton's campaign has let the word out after the Geffen flap — trashing Bill will not be tolerated. Next to the story was that famous photograph of Bill Clinton on Impeachment Day, flanked by all those miserable Democratic congressmen he dragged to the White House, and of course his wife. Oh, she may have been miserable too, but she had eaten her words six years after telling 60 Minutes in their 1992 campaign interview that she doesn't "stand by her man" like Tammy Wynette. I don't know if Tammy Wynette wears a black pant suit with a mandarin collar but there was Hillary Clinton, standing firm and standing by her man. Read more...

The latest on the appalling conditions for outpatients at Walter Reed Hospital? Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has ordered an investigation. Well, good for him. Better late than never, I guess. And you certainly can’t blame Gates for a disgrace that happened under Donald Rumsfeld.

But you know what I find strange about this Walter Reed scandal? And scandal it is. As reported in the Washington Post, Iraqi war veterans were forced to live in squalor any slum lord would go to jail for. What’s strange is: There’s been not one word of outrage or condemnation from the Commander-in-Chief himself. Read more...

I confess I’m divided by the Virginia General Assembly's action this past weekend to pass a resolution in the House of Delegates and the state Senate unanimously expressing “profound regret” for Virginia’s involvement in slavery. On the one hand, I’m pleased that the Commonwealth of Virginia, once the largest slave-owning state in the Old Confederacy, has publicly acknowledged its involvement in this despicable practice. On the other hand, how does this change anything? Read more...

Just when you think you have heard it all, up pops news that brings us around full circle. The latest buzz is Al Sharpton’s shocking news that he has ancestral ties to Strom Thurmond of South Carolina.

According to Mike Ward, a genealogist with Ancestry.com, “Based on the paper trail, it seems pretty evident that the connection is there.” Now Sharpton is asking for a DNA test to confirm the findings that his great-grandfather, a slave, was owned by an ancestor of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond. Read more...

Everyone with a political bone in their body who was watching the Oscars last night was asking the same question: Is Al Gore, possibly, maybe, kind of, sort of, running?

It could not have gone much better for him. A lot of eyeballs, as we say in the ad business, focusing on him. Humor. A strong issue. Al Gore at his best. Read more...