The prime minister found something hopeful in the man's eyes and manner. The 30 or so people who run this world analyze one another that way and then make decisions of life and death for us. Scary, but true.

The problems seem so easy out there on the stump. Deficits shrink with a rhetorical flourish.

We are creating a political demolition derby, not a presidential debate. Those strange impulses in the American soul that have produced mud wrestling and The Gong Show seem to have claimed the national campaign.

A White House dinner is the American family assembled, from labor leaders to billionaires, actors, architects, academicians and athletes.

China's Premier Zhao Ziyang, for all of his billion constituents, seemed in the evening's lovely flow like a favorite uncle, smiling a little too much, wanting to be a bit American, talking about peace and pork chops.

A sense of humor is needed armor.

In just 20 years terrorism, communications, the jet plane and the increase of wealth and knowledge have forced, to varying degrees, world leaders into a haunted and secret peerage whose links with the people they guide are meticulously cleansed and staged.