Americans have a lower opinion of Congress than they do of the NFL replacement refs, head lice, traffic jams, cockroaches and even the group to which yours truly belongs - Washington political pundits.

The FBI found Hillary Clinton to be extremely careless with classified information on her non-secured private e-mail server. While secretary of state. In addition to all we've been talking about, we're learning that Clinton actually lectured her own staff about the importance of cyber security back in 2010, telling them to do one thing while she herself was doing another thing.

The 2012 presidential campaign's turn away from the classic, straight-up, American election - where the candidate who gets the most votes nationwide wins - is another sad reminder of the extreme political polarization distorting today's politics. No one talks about a 50-state strategy for winning the presidency these days.

[Barack] Obama administration looking at taking a more aggressive stance and some of the Arab countries coming together.

Democrats cannot win elections without capturing the votes of independent-minded swing voters. And that is where writing off the Tea Party as a bunch of racist kooks becomes self-destructive. The Tea Party outrage over health-care reform, deficit spending and entitlements run amok is no fringe concern.

Ann Romney... looked to me like a corporate wife. The stories she told about struggles - eh! It's hard for me to believe. I mean, she's a very rich woman, and I know that, and America knows that.

In the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore got more votes than George W. Bush, but still lost the election. The Supreme Court's ruling in Florida gave Bush that pivotal state, and doomed Gore to lose the Electoral College. That odd scenario - where the candidate with the most votes loses - has happened three times in U.S. history.