The only people who listen to Pat Robertson are rightwing nutters whose cultural influence is nil. (They're simply "preaching to the choir"---and often, literally so.) The real enemies of liberal "elites" are...liberal elites---the self-loathing enforcers of political correctness. The Duke University lacrosse team---white athletes at an "elite" university---are an object lesson of what happens when political correctness runs amok.

McClelland seems to think that the marathon is just another race---albeit a lot longer than most. That may be the case for "elite" runners and for some spectators and "commentators," but for most of us who run a marathon, it's a rite of passage. The race asks a question: do you have the heart? It's a good question, an important question, and it has nothing to do with time. McClelland doesn't seem to grasp that---which is just...sad.

My wife, Carolyn, and I met Suze Rotolo aboard the Goran Kovacic, a Yugoslavian freighter that left New York for Tangier, Genoa and Rijecka in (I guess it was) early 1967. We were newlyweds, bound for Mykonos (and, later, Ibiza and Tangier). She was heading for Perugia.

She'd obviously been to Italy before, because her boyfriend met her at the dock---a handsome young Italian guy.

I remember her as lovely, smart and hip. Her decision to leave Dylan fascinated everyone, but no one pressed her about it, perhaps because she was so obviously more interested in tomorrow than yesterday.

Nor was she the only interesting person among the passengers. Besides Suze and ourselves (young writers), there were two American opera singers heading for La Scala, and a bright and interesting Israeli guy who locked himself in his stateroom when we docked at Tangier. Everyone knew he was a spy. It was kind of charming.

Joe Conason's piece about the Rich pardon gets closer to the truth than any other that has so far appeared. Yet the story is deeper (and darker) than even Joe knows.

I spent about a year-and-a-half tracking Marc Rich on behalf of the United Steelworkers union, which (in 1990) had 1500 workers locked out of an aluminum plant in Ravenswood, West Virginia. Investigating the lock-out, I learned that the plant was secretly owned by Marc Rich and his companies in Switzerland. If the lock-out could not have been brought to an end, the town would likely have blown away. The plant was its only industry, and it was being run by "replacement workers" commuting from out of town.

The Steelmakers eventually prevailed, despite threats by smartly-dressed goons who promised to kill us outside the Grosvenor Hotel in London and on the snow-covered roads to the World Economic forum in Davos. (The campaign was an international one, and eventually led to a book - "Ravenswood: the Steelworkers" Victory and the Revival of American Labor" by Tom Juravich & Kate Bronfenbrenner, Cornell University press).

The Rich pardon came out of nowhere, ten years later. Or so it seemed. On closer inspection, though, it would appear to have come out of Tel Aviv and New York. Rich's partner, Pincus Green, is (as Rich himself was) a fugitive billionaire. And he, too, was pardoned by Clinton in the last few minutes of the latter's presidency. Unlike Marc, however, "Pinky" is (or was, the last time I looked) a resident of Israel, living on a kibbutz.

Both men have given generously to Israeli causes (and political campaigns), while also performing secret services for the U.S. and (it's alleged) Israeli governments during their fugitivity. It should come as no surprise, then, to learn that the Jewish community in New York was so supportive of Hillary Clinton's campaign for the Senate after the Clintons left the White House.

That said, Hillary has been an outstanding senator and may well become a great Secretary of State. The Rich pardon, however, raises legitimate questions about her independence and ability to act as an honest broker in diplomatic negotiations to bring about peace in the Middle East.

By focusing on Eric Holder's involvement with the Rich/Green pardons, the Senate may well have missed the point. As Conason's article suggests, Rich's pardon has greater implications for American diplomacy than it does for American justice - with Holder the fall-guy for Hillary's ambitions.

I'm 66, and the way I see it, the whole problem is the elderly. They're responsible for a vastly disproportionate share of the country's medical expenses, *all* of the social security expenses - and when you think about it, damn near of them is unemployed. Hello? They don't do jack!

If, instead of retirement, we just put these deadbeats down when they turn 65 (or herd them onto a federal reservation in some wasteland-type place like Montana), we'd have a budget surplus. And once you did that, pretty much right away everybody would be younger and better looking. I know some people will think whacking the elderly is cruel, but it doesn't have to be. You could say all kinds of sensitive shit to them, then put something in their tea and they wouldn't even know it. They'd be gaga, and you could sell them to China for fuel. Just a thought.