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.

The press never accepts at face value that the President is taking a certain action because he wants to create jobs or because he believes that it is in the best interests of the American people or that he is genuinely committed to making life better for people.

Almost all first ladies have had tremendous power on personnel issues, whether the public realized it or not, whether it was Barbara Bush or Nancy Reagan or whoever.

And Clinton was like that - he saw the whole playing field. He didn't just see the event that he was at or the circumstances of that week or that month. He saw the whole playing field all the time.

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.

No reporter is flying around in borrowed twin-engine airplanes.

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