There's a difference between using the word to insult somebody and using it to start a journalistic conversation.

In the last 100 years only Presidents George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford lost their bids for reelection. President Lyndon Johnson did not run for a second term.

The Democrats thought that Hillary Clinton is too aggressive and too much into regime change.

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.

President Obama's proposal to raise the top rate to 39 percent is equal to the rate under President Clinton in the 1990s when Wall Street reached record high levels and the economy produced lots of jobs.

When I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.

As the 2012 elections approach the finish line, the chatter among columnists and political reporters is about upcoming books that take readers inside the campaigns, cutting-edge efforts to micro-target voters on Internet social applications, the enormous money flowing through super-PACs, and extreme political polarization.