Paul Begala

One of the problems we saw in the last presidential election in our party is that our nominee, while winning the election, which we ought never to forget, often lost sight of the difference between strategy and tactics.

But I think what happened was that Clinton knew how to fight back. And the way he fought back was on the issues - being tough in staying on the things that mattered to people in their lives.

Again and again, I've seen Bush turn a blind eye as his henchmen have leveled zealous attacks against his political enemies - assaults which the president himself has sometimes directly encouraged.

If George W. Bush is given a second term, and retains a Republican Congress and a compliant federal judiciary, he and his allies are likely to embark on a campaign of political retribution the likes of which we haven't seen since Richard Nixon.

So one important lesson of Vietnam is, the first casualty of an unwise and unjust war are the American troops called on to fight it. Their service should be honored.

I don't like being a voyeur, looking into other people's marriages.

It seems to me the American people never really forgave the Democrats for being right about Vietnam.

I mean, for all of his faults and the troubles in his marriage, Bill Clinton is still married to a girl he met in the library 25 years ago at school. Can we say that about many of our other leaders today in America, including on the right wing?

I'm a Catholic, but I used to love going to Vacation Bible School with my fundamentalist friends.

This gets back to the fundamental lesson of political survival that Bill Clinton taught me, which is if you make it about the American people's lives instead of your life, you're going to be okay.

If it was about lying under oath - we actually know that Clinton certainly was deceptive, as most people would be about their sex lives - but, in fact, he did not lie.

It taught me that Clinton's instinct to make this about your life as a citizen, rather than his as a human being, was the right answer to these things.