Al Gore was campaigning on the day of his sister's death, as records of both his interview and his speech that day make clear. But that's hardly the point: Weeks by her side in the hospital would not make up for the cheap way he treated her memory at the Democratic convention last year.

There's no way to spin it: Allowing women to get shot to death, or blown up, or mutilated and disfigured in war-particularly in a voluntary war-is horrible. It's unnecessary. It's barbaric.

Avoid boring, conventional people like death is what we are going to do. I'd rather have someone with a facial twitch with something interesting to say than the prettiest former federal prosecutor in all of Los Angeles.

No one I know has any real idea why voters are behaving the way they are this year-why the polls have been bouncing around, why Gore has been unable to capitalize on the state of the economy, why silly nonevents like kisses and appearances on Oprah seem to be having a real effect on who is going to be the next president.

I have no way of knowing how people really feel, but the vast majority of those I meet couldn't be nicer. Every once in a while someone barks at me. My New Year's resolution is not to bark back.

They treated me well once I was in the hospital there but I was humiliated to the core before I was allowed to be admitted there.