I'm happy to give my friend Madeleine Albright credit for the line, as Starbucks apparently has. But the truth is I've been using it for years in speeches to women about how we need to help each other get ahead in business, politics and academia. Katie Couric quoted it a year or so ago in a commencement speech, giving me the credit for it. And yes,...

For all the Republicans' complaints about Gwen Ifill, the moderator's questions were softballs compared to what Sarah Palin faced from Katie Couric. Ifill did not demand that Palin list (OK, how about just name more than one?) Supreme Court decisions. She did not push on the issue of foreign policy experience. She didn't follow up on how it is that...

In politics, timing is everything. Don't you think that in quiet places where they can't be heard, there aren't some involved in the 2008 political race who aren't whispering aloud questions about whether the almost whirlwind speed at which the entire financial market has melted down seems more than coincidental? Would they be guilty of unjustified...

"The fundamentals of our economy are strong," John McCain said as Wall Street went into white-knuckle panic over diving investor confidence. Does he believe that? It doesn't really matter, because the Republican has outsourced his economic policy to the ideologues whose opposition to regulations brought the financial markets to their knee...

At the news that Sarah Palin would be John McCain's running mate, hundreds of thousands leaped to their feet. Hallelujah! Yippee! Boy, oh, boy! In marketplace terms, we call Palin the-product-the-market-was-waiting-for, sort of like the better mousetrap, or the iPhone. What exactly does the lady offer the electorate that Mitt Romney, say, or Tim Pa...

John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin was the most inspired decision of his long race for the White House. The ads lampooning Barack Obama's messianic pretensions were skillful as well. But the Palin pick accomplished several goals at once. It is, it must be acknowledged, a terrible year to be a Republican. A decidedly unpopular Republican president ...

ST. PAUL — "I miss the old John McCain." It's a refrain I hear on a regular basis, most often from people who are Barack Obama voters no matter what. They yearn for the man who hated the same people that they hate — or so they believed, when in 2000 he called Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson "agents of intolerance." T...

One of the few political cliches that makes sense is that "In politics, overnight is a lifetime." Less than a year ago, the big question was whether Rudolph Giuliani could beat Hillary Clinton in this year's presidential election. Less than two months ago, Barack Obama had a huge lead over John McCain in the polls. Less than a week ago, t...

The Republicans' presumptive nominee for president, John McCain, could make an audacious and unprecedented statement Friday. He could electrify this already-historic presidential race by selecting a vice presidential nominee who possesses bona fide economic expertise rather than standard Washington dribble. He could pick a person who would inject c...

"Sickly. Weak. Feeble. Pick your choice." So began a Washington Post story about John McCain's presidential campaign almost exactly a year ago. "The one-time front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination has disappointing poll numbers and deathly results from the second quarter of fundraising. His failed effort to push thro...