Tim Russert led his round table with Hillary Clinton's much-excoriated and certainly maladroit mention of the RFK assassination, a gaffe that was reasonably attributed by the Washington Post's Ruth Marcus to "exhaustion and a very heavy dose of self-pity." But the more significant question Russert raised for his amiable bull session this week was: "What role did race, gender, and religion play in this campaign?"

Maureen Dowd seemed to have a set piece...