The exposed nature of life in the public square affects leaders' attitudes toward risk - and failure.

The dirty little secret is that the pool man, who's making $30,000 a year, is subsidizing the million-dollar mortgage for the family whose pool he cleans. No wonder people want to get rid of tax breaks for corporate jets.

Bill Clinton sitting on Air Force One getting his hair cut while people around the country cooled their heels and waited for him, became a metaphor for a populist president who had gotten drunk with the perks of his own power and was sort of, you know, not sensitive to what people wanted.

On the day I started college in 1979, no woman had ever been on the United States Supreme Court or served as the Speaker of the House. None had been an astronaut or the solo anchor of a network evening news broadcast. Not one had been president of an Ivy League college or run a serious campaign for president.

During my years as a press secretary, I developed a powerful internal filter, which worked to strip all things 'off message' from my thoughts before they came out of my mouth. It didn't always work, of course, and I said more than a few things I regretted.

Clinton's resilience became sort of the secret weapon of the campaign. He was never going to just give up and get out.

It isn't fate but fecklessness that has shoved Sarah Palin to the sidelines of national politics. The real tragedy is that she's taken a lot of other serious Republican women with her.