We sometimes have the most interesting discussions off the air at cable talk shows. Last night, Tucker Carlson, Pat Buchanan and I got into a pretty important back-and-forth on education, with Tucker citing Barack Obama’s comments about family responsibility.

We all agreed that it was easier for Obama to bring up the role of parents, particularly fathers, in their kids’ education. His personal experience and his race bring attention to the comments he made in Selma, Ala., over the weekend.

So why aren’t all of us focusing more on education in our society today? Here are some pretty disturbing facts about today’s ninth-graders: Only 68 percent of them will graduate with their classmates from high school. Of those that do graduate, 75 percent will go on to college.
Good news, except that over 40 percent of them will leave college by the end of their first year. Bottom line: Only 18 percent of today’s ninth-graders will graduate from a four-year college within six years.

Our society is changing and the old Horatio Alger notion of working your way up from sweeping the shop floors to being president of the company is a long-ago myth. Those involved in manufacturing being able to get high-paying jobs, with generous benefits, without an
education, is also going by the boards.

It is time we have a national debate about how best to truly improve education, prepare more kids for college and provide families with the financial help they need to achieve those goals.

We need to double the number of college graduates in a generation. Republicans, Democrats, Whigs and Greens…we should all be able to agree on that. Then we should figure out how we can get it done.

Before The Two senators (are there any others?) headed south for the week to campaign for black votes in Selma, Hillary Clinton spoke to the Human Rights Campaign on Friday, telling the group she opposes the "don't ask, don't tell" policy her husband adopted for gays in the military. But she didn't want anyone asking about the appearance, because her campaign didn't tell anyone about it.

Just 24 hours after returning from his big moment in Civil Rights country, we learn that Obama un-invited his pastor to give the public invocation at his presidential campaign announcement in Illinois last month the night before the event. Seems Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. of Trinity United Church, Obama's spirtual mentor, may be a bit too controversial because of Afrocentric teachings, visits with Muammar Qaddaffi and an alliance with Louis Farrakhan.

Al Sharpton, who had just crossed the Edmund Pettus bridge with Obama on Sunday, said he hadn't yet spoken with him about this news but he said, "I can see why callers of mine and other clergymen would be concerned, because the issue is standing by your own pastor."

Get ready for that phone call, senator.

When Clinton was asked directly, twice, why she hadn't revealed her plans to address the leadership of nation's most well known gay rights group she said "you'll have to ask my campaign." Really?

Clinton and Obama, who practically played tug-of-war with Rep. John Lewis this weekend — couldn't get close enough to him in Selma — appear to be suffering from guilt of association.

Sometimes it must be easier just to not ask and not tell.

A fairly convincing majority of you were right in predicting what the jury would say in the trail of Lewis "Scooter" Libby for obstruction, perjury and lying to the FBI in its investigation of the leak of a CIA operative's identity. The former aide to Vice-President Dick Cheney was convicted today, as predicted by 58% of those who took part in our Quick Poll!

We'll post another poll question shortly, so scroll down to check if it is there.

First, the war in Iraq. Then, Katrina. Now, Walter Reed.

There you have it, the legacy of George W. Bush: sheer, utter incompetence.

Congress opens hearings today on the shameful squalor outpatients were forced to live in at Walter Reed. Here are the questions they should ask:

1. How could the administration ignore — for three years! — complaints from so many patients and veterans’ organizations about conditions at Walter Reed?
2. Why did it take two weeks after the Washington Post broke the story for the Pentagon to react?
3. When IT finally did, why’d the Pentagon re-appoint, as head of Walter Reed, the guy who’d been in charge for the last three years — and deny it was any big deal?
4. And why did two weeks go by before the commander in chief even acknowledge there was a problem at Walter Reed? Was he asleep at the switch again?

George W. Bush. Four years later, he still ignores the failure on the ground in Iraq.

George W. Bush. For over a week, he ignored the suffering on the ground in New Orleans.

George W. Bush. For three years, he and his administration ignored the inhuman living conditions at Walter Reed.

George W. Bush. Soon to go down in history as one of our most incompetent presidents ever.

Just when will the zealots in Hollywood realize that they’re living in the real world and not fantasy land? As many people know by now, HBO “comedian” Bill Maher has put himself back in the headlines by saying something scandalous. This time, however, Maher’s remarks about Vice President Cheney weren’t funny — they were sickening, reflective of a man out of touch with reality. (Full disclosure: I had the privilege to serve as Vice President Cheney’s deputy domestic policy adviser during the first year of the Bush administration.)

In any event, Bill Maher had a discussion on his “Real Time” television program last week in which the topic of the Taliban’s attempted assassination of Cheney in Afghanistan was raised. First, Maher came out and said, “I have zero doubt that if Dick Cheney was not in power, people would not be dying tomorrow.” Really? Any proof of that, Mr. Maher? What specifically has the vice president done, or what would he ever do, to harm innocent life?

But then, Maher went even further in his idiotic commentary by saying in relation to the assassination: “I’m just saying if he [Cheney] did die, other people, more people would live.” I’m stunned and unable to comprehend Maher’s logic here.

For one, the explosion outside of the U.S. Air Force base in Bahrain killed between 12 and 18 people and wounded nearly 30 — many of whom were Americans. Does Maher condone an assassination attempt on the vice president of the United States that instead killed U.S. soldiers doing their best to protect our country? Is this worthy of a cheap joke to get laughs when our troops were killed?

How in the world can Maher even equate the death of the vice president of the United States with the corresponding effect being “other people, more people would live?” I would hope that HBO would reprimand Maher, but sadly, this is likely to be swept under the rug like many other stupid comments by vapid celebrities. Bill Maher, you disgust me.

The New York Times may have pushed the story of the Obama/Clinton Selma Showdown onto page A14, but the historic photograph of Bill and Hillary Clinton crossing the Edmund Pettus bridge with her rival, Sen. Barack Obama, is naturally the lead picture on the front page. In it Hillary looks her very best, almost regal in her mint green. But her husband at her side is looking directly at Obama, who stands out as the relaxed figure without blazer in rolled-up shirtsleeves, positioned diplomatically at the other end of the line. In fact, Bill
Clinton and Obama are beaming at each other.

This weekend's campaign for black voters had both Hillary and Obama posturing at preacher's pulpits, each trying to become Bill Clinton. Neither performance was subtle. Obama's southern accent — picked up in Illinois — became more pronounced as he tried to claim the events in Selma 42 years ago gave birth to him, though his black and white
parents fell in love and conceived him years earlier. Hillary seems to know she is less Bill than Obama, so all she forced out was "I come here as a sister in worship." Not her sharpest rhetorical moment, but maybe it sounded better in person than in print. 

This was Obama's weekend, as he was invited to give the keynote address, but Clinton made sure she would be there to mitigate his momentum. Still, Obama won the day, according to accounts, with more crowds, more applause and more members of Congress accompanying him than Clinton. Among the visiting lawmakers were Reps. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), longtime Clinton friends who have publicly revealed their affection for Obama but haven't endorsed him out of pressure from the Clinton machine. They haven't endorsed her, either, but have chosen for now to keep walking around with a stomach ache, buying time and hoping something happens that gets them out of this hideous choice.
 
Bill Clinton fans in Selma reportedly swarmed him and got those big hugs, despite the fact that some of them donned Obama pins. It doesn't take much to imagine just how hard Bill Clinton would be campaigning for Obama if his wife hadn't gotten the idea of running for president into her head. Bill Clinton likes excitement, and it looks like he's trying not to swoon around Obama.

The picture says it all.

On his first visit to Selma, Ala., Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) came face-to-face with Democratic rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.). At the 42nd anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march, Obama said the current generation needs to honor the civil-rights movement by taking responsibility for rejecting violence; cleaning up “40-ounce bottles” and other trash that litters urban neighborhoods; and voting in elections. He added that parents have to “turn off the television set and put away the Game Boy and make sure that you’re talking to your teacher and that we get over the anti-intellectualism that exists in some of our communities where if you conjugate your verbs and if you read a book that somehow means you are acting white.”

Even though Obama and Cinton both have a natural appeal among American black voters, can Obama make statements to American blacks that Sen. Clinton would feel politically incorrect if she were to make? The New York Times’s Lynette Clemetson notes, “When whites use the word [“articulate”] in reference to blacks, it often carries a subtext of amazement, even bewilderment … Such a subtext is inherently offensive because it suggests that the recipient of the ‘compliment’ is particularly different from other black people.” Many blacks see this word as it relates to them as a way of saying they are unable to speak with fluency and coherency. It is baffling why American whites are so guarded in what they say to American blacks when American blacks are not at all guarded in their remarks commenting on whites in America. Obama stated at the march, “If it hadn’t been for Selma, I wouldn’t be here. This is the site of my conception. I am the fruits of your labor. I am the offspring of the movement. When people ask me if I’ve been to Selma before, I tell them I’m coming home.” Although many whites served and died in support of the civil-rights movement throughout our history, it would be politically impractical for Hillary or anyone to tell American blacks to take responsibility for their own lives and claim that the government does not owe them everything.

Are whites afraid of being labeled racists and that something bad will happen if they say what is truly on their minds as it relates to blacks, or is it their innermost guilt? Inquiring minds would like to know.

Well, the far right has just finished their yearly confab here in DC showcasing the likes of Ann Coulter with her usual vitriol and absurdities. The queen of hate speech let ‘er rip again by referring to presidential candidate John Edwards as “a faggot.” This was after calling Al Gore “a total fag” on Hardball (just joking, she said, before making similar non-joking charges against Bill Clinton).

The woman has to sell books after all. Coulter is famous for calling 9/11 widows “greedy,” denying global warming, and insisting we should invade Muslim countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.

Yes, she has another book to sell — but it appears that some of the presidential candidates may not be buying. Romney called her remarks “offensive” and Giuliani said there is “no place for such name calling in political debate.” Of course, she laughs all the way to the bank.

America would be better off if Ann Coulter did just zip it but, of course, the more she talks the better the Democrats do in the polls. She really is the Republican’s worst nightmare. With friends like that……

A few minutes ago my e-mail alerted me to a statement the president had just delivered to the press upon his departure from the White House. The president noted that tomorrow I’m going to Georgia and Alabama. I go down with a heavy heart. I go down knowing full well that I’ll be seeing people whose lives were turned upside down by the tornadoes.” A properly somber tone and message struck by the president of the United States during a time of sorrow after Mother Nature took the lives of several people going about their daily lives yesterday — all to end in tragedy.

When I heard there was breaking news on the cable outlet my television is tuned into, I expected the media to comment on the president’s statement. What planet am I living on? Instead, I was treated to a report by a breathless reporter in the Bahamas who said that he had never seen so many white stretch limousines as those that arrived for Anna Nicole Smith’s funeral. Are you kidding me?

I fear the cable outlets have lost a sense of perspective as to what is really important in the world anymore. I only hope they will bury their coverage of Anna Nicole Smith when she is buried later on today — there are real stories and real tragedies that will resonate with Americans more than breathless coverage of someone who has been dead for several weeks now.