I'm A Baseball Freak.

A Lot Of People Over Time Have Had This Kind Of Pattern In Their Relationship With Bill Clinton. You First Meet Him And You're Overwhelmed By His Talent. He's So Energetic And Articulate And Full Of Ideas And He Calls Himself A Congenital Optimist And That Optimism Is Contagious.

You As The Press Secretary Have To Protect The President's Interests And The White House's Interests More Broadly. And A Lot Of People Inside The White House, As You Learned, Sometimes With Painful Experience, Have Competing Agendas, Have Differing Points Of View, Have Priorities They're Trying To Protect.

And Clinton Was Like That - He Saw The Whole Playing Field. He Didn't Just See The Event That He Was At Or The Circumstances Of That Week Or That Month. He Saw The Whole Playing Field All The Time.

'not Again!' I Thought To Myself This Morning, As News Trickled Out That John Mccain Was Set To Pick Alaska Governor Sarah Palin As His Running Mate. Not Again, Because Too Often Women Are Promoted For The Wrong Reasons, And Then Blamed When Things Don't Go Right.

Palin Was A Political Hail Mary, A Long Bomb In The Closing Minutes Of A Game That John Mccain And Co. Were Certain To Lose. They Didn't Care If She Had The Policy Or Political Or Emotional Capacity To Serve As Vice President, Let Alone President. They Were Willing To Drive The Country Off A Cliff, If That's What It Took To Win.