SLICK WILLIE, THE SEQUEL?
From Bill Bradley's sports memoir, Life on the Run: "After so many nights on the road in so many different hotels encountering so many different situations, everything takes on an ephemeral quality; everything ends with the payment at the cashier's desk the next morning. What normally would be out of the question for me becomes acceptable in the self-contained world of Mt. Marriott or Holiday Valley. Normal shyness would prevent me from entering a stranger's hotel room, but on the road there seems to be nothing to lose. Everyone in the hotel sleeps under the same roof for one night and moves on. Loneliness can be overcome only by reaching out for contact: a conversation in the bar, a sharing of dinner, a question in an elevator, a direct invitation, a telephone call to a room, or a helping hand with doors, windows, TVs, locks, or ice machines. The percentages are that if a man spends enough nights in hotels he will meet a woman with whom for that night he will share a bed, giving each a brief escape from boredom and loneliness. Make no mistake: Life in hotels is no continuous orgy. There are months of nights in one's room, alone. And it is rare that an encounter develops beyond the verbal level. It is very unusual when everything feels right and the loneliness of the road oppresses two strangers equally at the same time."

Thanks to Chip Griffin of PrimaryScoop.com for highlighting this passage.

DRIVING LESSONS
Vice President Gore last week said that next year's presidential election is "no time to take a far-right U-turn." As Michael Cannon of the Senate Republican Policy Committee pointed out to us, in the United States there's no such thing as a right-hand U-turn--only left-hand ones. When you've spent your life being driven around in limousines by chauffeurs, of course, these rules of the road aren't so obvious.