Of all presidential perks, the pardon power has a special significance. It is just the kind of authority that would attract the special attention of someone obsessed with himself and his own ability to influence events.

Phones rang constantly, as if the White House was conducting some kind of pardon telethon.

He decided to plunge on with pardons over the department's objections, or where he knew that there would be objections if he had let career prosecutors know what he was doing.

We cannot rule out some small residual influence of the surgery itself on cardiovascular events. But it looks as if women with hysterectomies have more heart disease because women who get hysterectomies also have more risk factors.

You can get constituencies that have a lot more voting and political power than their commercial influence. This can be a real problem for companies that are not involved in this process. They're ignoring the fact that decisions are being made that will affect the way e-commerce will be done.

In the mind of Bill Clinton, political considerations outweigh even life-and-death matters of great concern to his own law-enforcement officials, not to mention the nation.