Have the recent race baiting antics of the Clintons left you wondering whether the former first couple has lost its collective mind, especially now that this tactic seems to be at least partially responsible for Barack Obama's landslide victory in Saturday's South Carolina primary?

Or, like most conservatives, do you believe that nothing this pair ever does is spontaneous and without advanced political calculus, and that South Carolina went exactly as Bill and Hill planned?

For those undecided, a conversation I had on Friday with a very liberal albeit astute friend of mine might shed some light.

As the subject of the current presidential race surfaced, my friend indicated that he was supporting Hillary. Knowing him to be very concerned about civil rights, I asked why he wasn't backing Obama.

His answer?

OVERVIEW: An underappreciated accomplishment of the past six years has been the continued reduction in the number of people on welfare.

The welfare caseload, after declining dramatically in the first four years after Welfare Reform was enacted, might have been expected to level off, or even rise slightly with overall population growth, after the initial impact of the 1996 law wore off.

After all, the reduction in the number of welfare recipients during the 1990s was stunning. From a peak of over 14 million in 1994, and over 12.5 million at the end of 1996 (over 4.5 million families) when the new took effect, the number of those receiving welfare came tumbling down to about 5.5 million by the end of 2000 — a decline of nearly 2 million per year.

I’m not sure that anyone expected the numbers to steadily fall after the first four years of reform, but that is exactly what has happened. Here are the details for families and recipients on welfare as of the end of each calendar year beginning with the turn of the century (000s omitted):

So, have you heard that Fox News' Bill O'Reilly isn't fond of liberal bloggers?

In case there was any confusion about this issue, the outspoken host made it quite clear on Thursday's "O'Reilly Factor" when he told political consultant Dick Morris:

I think it's a danger to have blackmailers, which is what these bloggers are, active in the political process.

Ouch.

Yet, that might not have been the best moment in this segment, which also included a lengthy discussion about why Democrat presidential candidates are spending so much time bashing Fox News (video available here):