6) Very little of this has escaped the notice of journalists and of Democratic leaders. Yet, after every scandal they forget their public

denunciations of the Clintons. Here are some flavorous reminders. After the Clintons and their siblings were caught in the 42nd president's

last-minute pardon scandal, Jimmy Carter called them "disgraceful." Robert Reich opined that "Clinton is utterly disgraced." Al Hunt called

Clinton the "albatross" of his party who should "drop dead." Al Gore's campaign manager, Donna Brazile wrote in the New York Times that "It's

time to let Bill Clinton go -- go on and live the rest of his life and allow a new generation of Democratic leaders to renew their fight on

behalf of working families in America." New York Times columnist Bob Herbert affirmed that "Bill Clinton has been a disaster for the

Democratic Party. Send him packing. It's time for the Democratic Party to wise up. Ostracism would be a good first step. Bill Clinton should

be cut completely loose....some of Mr. Clinton's closest associates and supporters are acknowledging what his enemies have argued for years

-- the man is so thoroughly corrupt it is frightening."

Editorially in February 2001 the New York Times asserted that "the former president...seemed to make a redoubled effort in the last moments

of his presidency to plunge further and further beneath the already low expectations of his most cynical critics and most of his world-weary

friends." And the newspaper lamented that it might "never understand the process by which a departing president and his wife come to put

sofas and flatware ahead of the acute sense of propriety that ought to go with high office." The New York Observer assessed Hillary's

election to the Senate "a terrible mistake," adding that "Hillary Rodham Clinton is unfit for elective office."

Those are some of the unlovely things said about the the Clintons by their friends. Now are the Democrats really going ahead with a Hillary

nomination?

7) The press has been lax in reporting the Clintons' unprecedented record of ethical failings and outright corruption. Most glaringly even

the conservative columnists remain inert. The conservatives have adopted the position that all of the above is passe and to dwell on it is

unseemly and awkward.

Well, call me unfashionable, but I find the Clinton record alarming.

Robert Mugabe, 83 years old, now in the twenty-seventh year of his reign as prime minister, then president of Zimbabwe, is once again

maneuvering to extend his longevity in that office.

Cleverly, as Mugabe usually acts when he isn't simply brutal, the self-ordained "father of Zimbabwe" has had floated the idea of rescheduling

to 2010 the presidential election due at the end of his term in 2008 in coordination with the parliamentary elections. This device would

prolong his stay in office while giving him time to sort out the current bitter infighting within his own ruling party, Zanu-PF.

Meanwhile his country's economic state is disastrous. What once was a balanced economy before he assumed power in 1980 now borders on

bankruptcy. The national inheritance of a modern agriculture and growing mining and manufacturing sectors has been squandered. Inflation

neared 1600 percent in January of this year and international banking circles predict it to reach a possible 5,000 per cent by the end of the

year.

Mugabe, who supposedly earned a master's degree in economics from London University, appears to have forgotten or ignored the basics of his

discipline while espousing his own form of dictatorial socialism learned from his days in Kwame Nkrumah's Ghana. It seems of little interest

to Mugabe that a majority of Zimbabwe's populace lives at a bare subsistence level.

Zimbabwe is not bereft of technically trained administrators. They are simply disregarded, exiled, or worse. The head of the central bank,

Gideon Gona, however, laid out the economic problem quite accurately, and indeed courageously, to a parliamentary committee recently. He put

the onus squarely on the politically organized squatters who have taken over the land sequestered from the European settler-owned farms. He

made clear these thugs and their tribal allies have simply ravaged the once commercially profitable holdings and then moved on.

The official estimate of losses due to the smuggling of Zimbabwe's mineral products runs between 40-50 million dollars a month. The plans for

a government takeover of the marketing of gemstones have been slow to develop. In any case, government buying offices remain questionable as

a method to deter the illegal sales as long as the proposed new bureau remains a politically controlled instrument.

The entire transport system of the country is in danger of collapsing from the absence of foreign exchange reserves. The once dependable rail

system is breaking down from lack of infrastructure maintenance and spare parts, as is the government-controlled airline.