The only difference between McDonalds customers and the dinner crowd is that the latter dine on tablecloths. The powerful are as likely to be as portly as the plebes.

Everybody's looking for the niche to make the difference. Some people think they see the mother lode in the beautiful people, especially the vote of the beautiful women.

There is a noticeable difference from a crowd surging against you and a crowd surging with you.

Women can break down barriers to opportunity, and men, many of them reluctantly, have learned to relate to women as their equals in thought and action. But except for an eccentric few, women do not want to become warriors.

Many critics of the Palestinians, especially those in Congress, think the current calm is merely the eye of the storm. That's why the House of Representatives approved a foreign aid package last week that forbade the direct financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority .

When Bill Bennett, the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus and theologian Michael Novak go to the synagogue, it's not to read the Torah. They're going there to make a speech.