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From the sound of it, Feinstein and Kyl were pretty clever: by proposing a moratorium on student visas, they got the colleges and universities to go along with biometric ID cards. The colleges and universities had to have been really scared that a visa ban would have been accomplished to go along with the ID cards.

The wealthy foreign students will have to pay all the costs associated with these biometric programs (retina scanners cost like $10,000) and the equipment will be in place for expanded use. Good deal for us.

You seem to forget that Rudy Giuliani strongly opposed the impeachment, did TV appearances opposing it, has made many statements decrying the harassment of politicians and is, first and foremost, a LOOSE CANNON. He'll turn on the Republicans if they put him in there, just you watch. But they won't put him in there because he's a known quantity.

Ms. White did her bidding: holding over this Democratic appointee allowed the matter to be pushed back to the point of irrelevance. Both political parties were in on it. Bush doesn't want any indictments over presidential pardons; he's not opening that can of worms for his own sake and that of future presidents. So the 2 items involving the Clintons were always non-starters. Most of the Torricelli stuff has passed the statute of limitations and Torricelli always made clear he would assert statute of limitations.

Everyone likes Tom Kean. He might have won, but the cost would have been creating a segment of opposition to him. Why does he need that? At 66, he wouldn't be planning to stay in the Senate long enough to have accomplishments and he'd be the junior Senator from NJ, quite possibly still in the minority.

He has a high profile as an elder statesman political commentator; he's wealthy; his son is an up and coming politician. I think he doesn't shut down these continual speculations about him immediately out of politeness to the national Republicans who keep trying to push him in. It was President Bush who pushed poor Bob Franks into the primary against Bret Schundler because national Republicans felt Schundler was a sure loser; Franks wanted to hold off and run for Senate next year. Now, Franks can't be a 3 time loser 3 years in a row, so he's bowed out; Whitman is a sure loser; so they started pressuring Tom Kean again.

He went along with it for awhile to be gracious but its good of him to end the speculation with the first announced Republican (Treffinger).

Thats the interesting thing: Here in New Jersey, Gore won by 13% and both senators are Democrats; a Democrat just won the governorship by a landslide 14%. We also have the highest per capita income and the highest per capita benefit from the Bush tax cuts.

Meanwhile, voters in places like the Dakotas and the South have low per capita incomes, low per capita benefit from the Bush tax cuts and high per capita benefit from all kinds of federal spending. Logically, they should oppose cuts in federal spending as anathema to their interests and hardly be concerned about tax cuts. But these are the states that voted most lopsidedly for Bush.

So, theres no rational, ideological logic to the way people have voted. I think Clinton inspired a lot of anti-Democrat voting over the last decade but even before Clinton, these were REpublican states.

I saw the special some weeks ago and Prince Sultan confirmed that the Saudi government spirited a bunch of bin Ladens out of the USA by jet right after 9/11. Have never seen it much discussed in the national media. How could our government have allowed that to happen? Those people should have been questioned. Ashcroft is detaining over 1,000 Muslim men and seeking to question 5,000 more. Probably very few have any real connection to the 19 terrorists; one fellow was held for being on a DMV line earlier in the same day that Mohammed Atta was there. For what earthly reason were bin Laden relatives allowed to just pack up and go?

I think they're pretty much like all pols, trying to make themselves look good. I've noticed it in pols of both parties and could make a lot of little criticisms, but what would be the point? I take you at your word that these issues really bothered you and you might want to read the articles on dailyhowler.com for a different take on the whole mishigass.

No, no, you're twisting that to mean what you want it to mean. Condit is required by House rules to inform that he received a subpoena. His statement was that he'll do what the House's "General Counsel" tells him to do as regards the requirements of House rules. Its undoubtedly a boilerplate statement. Construing it to mean he's trying to get away with something or put himself above the law is reading something into it that just isn't there.

I don't think anything more - anything important - will happen in this case until Chandra is found, do you?

stomach,

whats wrong with Clinton saying Chelsea talked about going to a military academy or Hillary saying she once wanted to enlist? My own kid has talked about going to a military academy; probably better than 25% of kids have that idea at some point. And I know many people who've told me they thought about going into the military --- I would presume to say Hillary Rodham didn't have that idea. How would I know?

This stuff is kind of petty, isn't it?

It had to be. The House Republicans capitulated on this and they should have never made an issue of it. These screeners have to become law enforcement oriented; the Senate was right to put it under the Department of Justice. There was a mentality being promoted to us that the air crews and the passengers would take care of hijackers a la Flight 93. Thats just wrong, crazy even. The onus of security has to be on pre-boarding. If we are not vigilant, the airlines will rationalize that "it won't happen again, or probably won't" and go back to promoting "Lasagna over Los Angeles."

But is McKenney saying he saw this with his own eyes or is he repeating something he claims to have heard? You know, this is simple logic dealing with a partisan issue: You have to be able to face your accuser. I credit nothing that disparages a public figure if the source won't come forward and put his name on it, and especially not grown-ups staying anonymous and telling stories about what a child is supposed to have said.

can you cite a URL for that story with quotes from the secret service personnel she asked to carry her bags? Theres a lot of made-up stories that were circulated about the Clintons, like 13 year old Chelsea calling soldiers "pigs" and the stuff in Gary Aldrich's book that had no one coming forward and putting his name on the charges. Really, you know, anyone can say anything about a public figure without risk of being sued for libel or slander.

No, its not a quote or it would be in quotation marks, "I am considering whether to comply with the subpoena." IN FACT, the reporter could have written this without Condit saying anything at all. Once the subpoena has gone out, a reporter can say Condit is "considering" whether to comply with it. The sentence means nothing except to bias the reader against Condit. Its dishonest reporting to phrase like that but Condit is a public figure; he can't sue for libel or slander so he's an easy target for tricks.

Hey! I'm not disparaging him because I don't agree with his views nor he with mine. I disparage him because he clearly didn't read the speech but there he is using a dishonest Washington Times column about the speech as the basis for his syndicated column. He's not only unintellectual, he's lazy.

In fact, I disagree with Clinton's remarks, but not on the silly, petty, partisan-baiting grounds that Sowell does. Clinton's message to those students was to be confident that we'll get a handle on the terrorists and the countries and peoples who currently sympathize with the terrorists will change. It was a hopeful, optimistic, pro-western civilization message. I'm less optimistic. September 11 was a new kind of warfare that used our own resources against us and I don't see the possible limit to that. Every terrorist organization in the world must have sleeper operatives here in the US already. I had to make 4 NYC area bridge crossings last weekend; I was apprehensive.

Now, I DID read the Sowell article but I most certainly do not believe that either of you 2 read the full text of Clinton's speech.

Sowell's article is pathetic. He didn't read the speech either. He's working off the little excerpt and dishonest spin from the original Washington Times article. And he's got it all bass ackwards. This guy is not an intellectual.

Read the speech. Its long but cogent. It obviously wasn't delivered by someone who was drunk, so that alone should cause you to distrust the pundits who told you Clinton was drunk. I mean, this is not Dan Quayle turning the motto of the UNCF into "What a terrible thing it is to lose one's mind." Clinton's message is hopeful one, if you read it with an honest mind.

O'Reilly's kind of just using Hillary Clinton, isn't he? My new senator, Jon Corzine, has been far less visible than Hillary Clinton although 40% of the people who died in the WTC were Jerseyans. You could go through the list of all new senators and they haven't been world beaters.

Condit said he was considering whether to comply --- THIS IS NOT A QUOTE, folks. This is how the media manipulates you. He could have answered "Yes" to a reporters question and the reporter could write it up like that.

He's turning over what the grand jury asked from him. Thats all there is to it.

Did you guys actually read Clinton's speech? I read it at a site called dailyhowler.com that I started going to from a link during the whole Gary Condit hullabaloo. Its in the Current Articles section as a link in articles about the weirdness of the Washington Times articles on the speech. If you read the speech, you have to know the media commentary has been ignorant, just plain ignorant. Over and over again, Clinton voices support for Bush and for the war effort in Afghanistan. Thats just a fact. The oft-quoted elements of the speech are INDISPUTABLE FACTS: We ARE still paying a price for slavery. Whats controversial about THAT? Read the speech and you see that the slavery comment is an "aside" not a comparison to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Yeah, I'm not a Clinton fan, either, never voted for him, have been commenting negatively about him for years on FR but I'm not going to be a yahoo just to comfort myself and cling to disliking Clinton as some kind of emotional security blanket in the face of terrorists. Be honest; don't be lazy; read the speech. Its not a controversial speech and you have been lied to about it.

Don't bother to reply to me unless you read the speech.

I'm not against her; rather just thinking in terms of her vulnerabilities. Remember in '98, Geraldine Ferraro looked like a shoe-in to win the Democratic nomination and the senate seat in NY, but her campaign imploded and Schumer easily beat her for the nomination and easily beat D'Amato in the general.

The problem with comparing her to Hillary Clinton is that there's no presidential race next year to bring out votes and Dole's opponent probably will be a better candidate than Rick Lazio, who was awful.

Is Elizabeth Dole seen in North Carolina as someone with a lot of success and accomplishments in her own right or as, basically, someone who cashed in on her husband's career? Would she have ever been a cabinet secretary or headed the Red Cross without Bob being Senate Majority Leader, in other words? Would she have been an obscure Washington lawyer with no reason to be running for any office if she'd married someone else? How do North Carolinians view her in that regard?

Personally, I've never seen any reason to think she would have made much of a splash without being married to Bob.

Is it going to be a pattycake campaign or will the candidates get personal? Whats your take?

Bloomberg is not a career politician so he wouldn't be familiar with the "protocol." Give him a couple months and he'll be opening with the same kind of spiels all the other pols use.