Over a year ago, Congress passed a law to spend over $7 billion to build a fence to secure our Mexican border.

On February 22, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced at a news conference that a high-tech "virtual fence" project on part of the U.S. border with Mexico was finally ready for service.

The so-called Project 28 virtual fence was built near Nogales, Ariz. The $20 million project of sensor towers and advanced mobile communications was supposed to be ready by mid-2007, but was delayed by software problems.  So Mr. Chertoff's announcement was good news.

But only five days later on February 27, the media reported that the Bush administration has scaled back plans to quickly build a virtual fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, delaying completion of that first 28-mile phase by at least three years and shifting away from a network of tower-mounted sensors and surveillance gear.

During the past two centuries, three major European continental nations have tried to impose their will on the rest of the continent, indeed, on the globe. First France in the early 19th century, then Germany in the first half of the 20th century, and finally Russia.

In the second half of the 20th century, France and Germany each realized that on their own their importance on a European and global level was going to decline. Hence, they became the motors of the so-called European unification process. Many - especially in Britain, but also in smaller countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands - perceive the European Union to be a joint Franco-German effort at dominating Europe.

Eastern European nations such as the Baltic states and Poland fear that one day the Franco-German axis might be enlarged by bringing in Russia.  They realize that the biggest threat to their independence is a Franco-German-Russian axis. If one day Paris, Berlin and Moscow decide to join forces the rest of Europe will have to do as they are told.

So they have begun to ask themselves an amazing question.

Sen. Hillary Clinton has road-tested several versions of attacks on Sen. Barack Obama that don't work. Obviously, and first, don't come out against change and hope - the perennial themes of successful election campaigns.

Even my old boss, Ronald Reagan, campaigned for re-election in 1984 in response to the claim that America needed to change on the phrase, "We ARE the change" (as well as on the hopeful theme of "morning in America").

If a candidate is not for change, he is not for us.  Nor will Americans ever vote for a presidential candidate on what he or she has already done for us. In American politics, gratitude is always the lively expectation of benefits yet to come. The question is always, what will you do for us tomorrow?

Americans will not give Sen. John McCain the White House because we are grateful for his heroism 40 years ago at the "Hanoi Hilton." We are grateful, and he was heroic. Americans might gladly vote a medal, or even an opulent retirement home, but not the presidency.

If Yogi Berra happens to be in Moscow this coming May 9, we know what he'd say:  "Looks like déjà vu all over again."

On that day, heavy military equipment will once again roll down Moscow's Red Square for the Victory Day military parade. Tanks, missiles, and 6,000 troops will be joined overhead by fighter aircraft and military helicopters. The last time Moscow saw such a display of military hardware was November 1990, before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The parade is designed to generate nostalgia among the Russian people and to signal the U.S., NATO members and Russia's neighbors that Russia's power is back. It also illustrates President Vladimir Putin's emphasis on the military and security services at the expense of modern, democratic institutions.

Unless you live in one of the 17 states that still use the caucus as part of the political nominating process, your knowledge of that institution is likely limited to Iowa caucus reports on the news.  Yet the caucus plays a broader, important role in our presidential nominating process. 

In states that have retained or returned to the caucus - such as my state of Colorado - every election year sees a spirited debate over the merits and demerits of the caucus system.  The young lady who cuts my hair, a staunch conservative Republican, expresses the negative viewpoint as well as anyone. 

She doesn't like the caucus system because it excludes too many people.  To prove her point, I suppose, she self-excluded herself by not attending the caucus in our precinct, despite my strong encouragement to do so!

Our local Republican Party treasurer, on the other hand, champions the caucuses because they're the only place the average voter can actually participate in debates on issues and candidates and have those debates translate into meaningful action.

I myself like the caucus system for an entirely different reason.

Assuming John McCain gets the Republican nomination, it will show how whimsical history can be.

It would be the first time in living memory that a Republican presidential nomination went to a candidate who was not merely opposed by a majority of the party, but was actively despised by about a half of its rank-and-file voters across the country -and by many if not most of its congressional officeholders.

After all, the McCain electoral surge was barely able to deliver a plurality of one-third of the Republican vote in a three-, four- or five-way split field. He has won fair and square - but he has driven the nomination process askew.

This result reminds me of the nursery rhyme:

Democracy died in Europe at the end of 2007.

Last December, governments leaders of the 27 European Union member states convened in Lisbon to sign the EU Reform Treaty. This treaty of 76,250 words is a rewrite of the EU Constitutional Treaty, which was rejected in 2005 by referendums in major European countries.

European leaders carefully avoid to call the reform treaty a "constitution," however, because they do not want to submit it to their peoples in a referendum. French President Nicolas Sarkozy conceded in November that the treaty would be rejected "in all member states if they have a referendum."

Politicians like Mr. Sarkozy and Germany's Mrs. Merkel are the driving forces of this process because it enhances their powers. Today's EU's governmental bodies - the European Commission and the European Council - are unelected; they are appointed by the national governments.

As the British author John Laughland explains: "The EU is a cartel of governments, engaged in a permanent conspiracy against their own electorates and parliaments." 

This is an endless a campaign of "what ifs." 

That is, a campaign prepares a strategy that presupposes a scenario which apparently will occur with 100 percent probability.  Then, when things don't quite go as planned, the campaign strategists have an alibi. Somehow, externalities undercut a supposedly thoughtful and well conceived plan.

The only problem with all this self-serving Monday morning quarter-backing?  Events with a reasonable probability were assigned zero probability, because the strategy was ineptly created. It often assumed an optimum or best case scenario. Or it sharply or entirely discounted reasonably foreseeable events.

Let's go through the what-ifs of the candidates in the wake of Florida and on the eve of Super Tuesday.