With Barack Obama nipping at her heels in Iowa, Hillary Clinton went on the state's public television airwaves Dec. 14 to say: "I've been vetted. . . . There are no surprises.  ...  Of all the people running for president, I've been the most vetted, the most investigated and -- my goodness -- the most innocent."

It was fascinating to watch the three top contenders for the Democratic nomination discuss their concept of the presidency during Tuesday night's MSNBC debate in Las Vegas. But it was also stunning to realize that the three current and former senators who have survived the shakeout process -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards -- have not a day of chief executive experience among them.

By contrast, the Republican field is loaded with people who are accustomed to being in charge of large organizations. Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee were governors of their states of Massachusetts and Arkansas, Rudy Giuliani served as the mayor of New York, and John McCain, as he likes to remind audiences, commanded the largest squadron in the Navy air wing.

America has passed another milestone on its march to equal opportunity thanks to Robert Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television, who this week proved that a black billionaire can be just as witless as are certain white billionaires who think their wisdom is commensurate with their net worth. Introducing Clinton at a rally, Johnson called Obama a "guy who says, 'I want to be a reasonable, likable Sidney Poitier in 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.' " For the uninitiated, that is how you call someone an Uncle Tom in an age that has not read "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

Johnson also said the Clintons were "involved in black issues" when Obama "was doing something in the neighborhood -- I won't say what he was doing, but he said it in his book." Johnson was, of course, referring to Obama's admission of teenage drug use. With Bill Clinton supporting him, he later insisted that he was referring to Obama's community organizing. The Clinton campaign should not be blamed for this comic dishonesty. In the Clintons' orbit, meretriciousness is as reflexive as a sneeze, and reflexes are not moral failures.

Endorsements of politicians by politicians may matter little to voters, but they are indicators of the endorsers' estimates of strengths and dangers. So what do Sens. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Ben Nelson of Nebraska; former senator Gary Hart of Colorado; and Govs. Jim Doyle of Wisconsin, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Janet Napolitano of Arizona have in common?

Three things, actually. They are Democrats, they have been elected in red or swing states, and they have endorsed Obama.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee yesterday continued to move to the right on immigration during this year's presidential campaign, signing a pledge to enforce immigration laws and to make all illegal aliens go home.

The good news is there are many things the government can do that will improve the economy with almost no negatives. For instance, some tax rates are above the revenue and welfare maximizing rate, and there are many unnecessary government regulatory impediments on productive activity that should be removed.

One "free lunch" is to reduce the federal corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. Such a rate cut will make U.S. businesses more globally competitive and increase employment growth and investment. At the same time, the rate reduction is unlikely to cause any revenue loss and may, in fact, increase total tax revenues, and here is why:

The United States now has arguably the highest corporate tax rate in the world — combined with the average of state corporate tax rates, it works out to about 40 percent. More than two dozen developed countries have cut their corporate tax rates in the last two years. Even France and Germany have lower corporate tax rates than the United States. Ireland has reduced its tax rate to only 12½ percent, which helped it to go from one of the poorest countries in Europe 20 years ago to the one with the second-highest per capita income today.

Most of the former communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe have now adopted low rate flat taxes, the most recent being Bulgaria, with a maximum corporate rate of only 10 percent.

The reasons the rest of the world have been cutting corporate tax rates is they found that lower rates bring in more revenue, and they need to have lower rates to be globally competitive. The U.S. is losing the competitiveness race, in part, because it is not tax competitive, and it will continue to lose global market share (and tax revenue) unless it cuts the corporate rate.

Those candidates wishing to pander to the economically ignorant will push for more government spending and higher tax rates on business and "the rich." Those responsibly seeking to stimulate and improve the economy will do so by advocating such things as cutting the corporate tax rate, indexing the basis of capital gains for inflation and increasing business expensing for depreciation.

Such changes, while not politically sexy, are a true "free lunch."

Opponents of the Indiana photo ID law used Faye Buis-Ewing, a 72-year-old retiree who had trouble getting a state-issued ID, as a poster child for how the law would block voters. Then it was learned Ms. Buis-Ewing lives most of the year in Florida, has claimed residency there, and was illegally registered to vote in both states. Confronted with these facts, Ms. Buis-Ewing was unrepentant. "I feel like I'm a victim here," she told the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette. "I never intended to do anything wrong. I know a lot of people in Florida in this same situation."

In Florida, where the Bush-Gore presidential election was decided by 537 votes, the New York Daily News found in 2004 that between 400 and 1,000 voters registered in Florida and New York City had voted twice in at least one recent election.

In 1995, Barack Obama sued Illinois over its voter registration rolls on behalf of the radical group ACORN, and he now rails against Clintonista attempts to shut down Nevada caucus sites and photo ID laws. But just last September, Oprah Winfrey held a lavish fundraiser for Mr. Obama at her California estate. None of the 1,500 guests could enter until they presented a government-issued photo ID that could be compared to a guest list. When asked about this, the Obama campaign had no comment.

On Disko Bay in western Greenland, where a number of prominent world leaders have visited in recent years to get a first-hand impression of climate change, temperatures have dropped so drastically that the water has frozen over for the first time in a decade.

'The ice is up to 50cm thick,' said Henrik Matthiesen, an employee at Denmark's Meteorological Institute who has also sailed the Greenlandic coastline for the Royal Arctic Line. 'We've had loads of northerly winds since Christmas which has made the area miserably cold.'

Matthiesen suggested the cold weather marked a return to the frigid temperatures common a decade ago.

Temperatures plunged to -25°C earlier this month, clogging the bay with ice and making shipping impossible for small crafts, according to Anthon Frederiksen, the mayor of the town of Ilulissat, where Disko Bay is located.

'On the other hand, it's an advantage for fishermen who rely on dogsleds for transportation,' Frederiksen said.

The mayor cautioned against thinking that the freezing temperature indicated that global warming claims were overblown. He noted that a nearby glacier had retracted more in the past two decades than in recorded history.

'We Greenlanders have acclimated to changing conditions over the past 1100 years,' said Frederiksen. 'Temperatures change at regular intervals.'