It's the biggest night of Joe Biden's life and he's getting lots of public advice, much of it bad. Here's hoping he has the good sense to ignore conventional pundit wisdom, which goes something like this:

Ignore Palin and aim instead at John McCain. People don't vote for vice president...

It's Thursday afternoon and Democrats in Denver are as quiet as an army on the eve of battle.

It's partly exhaustion. A political convention is no country for old men, but just 14% of delegates are under 36, meaning 14% at most are of an age to party hearty,...

In August of 1972 I sat in a bar with some buddies watching the Republican Convention on a TV. It was "Pat Nixon Appreciation Night" in Miami, complete with tribute film and a phalanx of fresh faced kids dressed as cheerleaders. The theme was "Pat's special connection to young people"...

Democrats have fallen on Denver like so many highly opinionated Shriners. The city is ready for them, with smiling volunteers posted at every street corner. If you get directions and still look lost, any one of them would walk you to your destination.

It has a light rail system...

I packed for Denver still hoping for Hillary. I'd never seen a major campaign miss a move this obvious. But unable to reconcile himself or many of his supporters to the idea Obama at least went with a very plausible alternative.

Joe Biden adds experience, foreign policy expertise, a certain...

It seems Barack Obama has scratched Hillary Clinton from his list of possible running mates. He should rethink his situation. Few potential picks help him at all. Hands down, Hillary helps the most.

Some say Clinton would undermine Obama's big 'change' theme; that he should seek a...

Travel agents often gull tourists into trips like the one Barack Obama just took; nine countries in nine days; each stop just long enough to snap a few pictures, ask a few questions and lose your luggage. Obama's gaffe-free jaunt shows he has two traits tourists and presidents need: discipline...

It turns out Hillary wasn't ready to lead on day one, but the sheer grit of her end game will long be remembered. In her concession we glimpsed the candidate she might have been.

She's at her best when she's closest to inhabiting herself. No one's public persona is...

Bill Buckley died Wednesday at 82 at his home in Connecticut. He was the most influential public intellectual of his generation in this country, maybe the world.

More than anyone, even Goldwater or Reagan, he was the father of modern conservatism, which was as much an intellectual as a...

New Year's is about optimism, just as July Fourth is about patriotism and Thanksgiving, gratitude. Optimism is sometimes hardest to muster up. It isn't based on experience; indeed, it's how we endure despite everything that happens to us.

Survival skills are learned. The will to survive comes from a...

Like most of you, I love Christmas. Unlike many of you I also love winter, both for its connection to Christmas and for its intrinsic beauty. I delight at the first snow and don't tire of it till well into mud season.

In many places these days it's as...

I have a distinction you won't envy. I saw or heard every presidential debate but one and read all the transcripts. What did I learn? This: For passionate idealism and timely analysis of issues, I'd have been better off watching reruns of Boston Legal.

If you're more into 'character'...

In 1960 John Kennedy went to Texas to talk to some Protestant pastors about what it means to be a Catholic. They were mostly Democrats but the reception was not a warm one, the reason being they were also white, male, conservative and on the brink of an historic political...

Ten years ago I got caught unaware during a TV debate on global warming. Midway through the show, the industry funded science denier I was debating unveiled a new argument. It was so daft I mistook it for a joke, thus appearing disrespectful when I meant to be congenial; proof...

It was no surprise to find Democrats raking over the same old issues in their last debate but it was shocking to find them raking over old Republican issues instead of their own. If they go on doing it they'll give away another election that was theirs for the taking.

That Hillary Clinton's one tough gal. As everyone knows, in the last debate some very bad boys did everything but push her to the sidewalk and steal her purse. Each time they hit her, she got back up. Among American politicians only her husband, the king of pain, seems more...

Al Gore once campaigned for me with his foot in a cast. As we waited to be introduced at a luncheon he confided that the injury had ended his dream of an NBA career; that and the fact that he was 46 and Vice President of the United States. I...

Nearing the end of a catastrophic presidency George Bush seeks redemption in odd ways. Having wrecked Iraq he takes aim at Iran. Having denied global warming, he asks others to fix it. Having waged war on a credit card, he mimics fiscal prudence in symbolic budget battles with Congress.

It's...

Ever since John Kennedy won a Pulitzer for Profiles in Courage, presidential candidates have written books. They range from vacuous policy tomes to memoirs meant to inspire to a book by John Edwards about people's houses. I didn't quite get Edwards' point but his central theme -- there's no place...

Rudy Giuliani is slipping, if not quite sliding away. In early polls he led Hillary Clinton and every Democrat and was pulling away from the Republican pack, having benefited much from John McCain's gracious decision to set himself on fire.

Back then the smart money--and it's a wonder they...