America/Conor O'Clery: When David Geffen, co-founder of Hollywood studio DreamWorks and a major financial backer of Bill Clinton, told a New York gathering this week that Hillary Clinton could not win the presidential race in 2008 because "she's an incredibly polarising figure", the Daily News reported that there was hearty applause.
But no one doubts any more that the New York senator is positioning herself for a run at the presidency. She is moving to the centre and has become less polarising, as her husband did to win the White House in 1992.
The former first lady, who backed the war in Iraq and its funding, told me at a Washington reception this week she was getting ready for a visit to Baghdad and Fallujah, which will go down well with the troops. She is a member of the Armed Services Committee and has co-sponsored legislation in Congress with former Clinton-haters like Tom DeLay and Trent Lott. Recently she gave a speech to family planning activists suggesting that pro-choice Democrats should soften their rhetoric and find common ground with the pro-life movement.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina - a prime mover in the impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton - told New York magazine Ms Clinton could win every state John Kerry did and would be a better candidate in the swing states. His advice to Republicans who said "Bring her on!" was "Watch what you wish for."
What Hillary has also going for her among Republicans is that she is "very engaging" (Congressman Peter King) and "intelligent", "classy" and "fun" (Lindsey Graham). According to polls her ratings are better than those of George Bush, and among Democrats she is way ahead of Senator John Kerry - who is also trying to position himself for another run.
Kerry can never match the celebrity status of the Clintons. When Hillary and Bill appeared in a Broadway theatre for Michael Frayn's Democracy, they reportedly got a lengthy standing ovation. Polls show that Hillary will easily get re-elected as New York senator in 2006, beating off every likely challenger, even Rudolph Giuliani. That would give her the momentum to launch a presidential campaign and fulfil her ambition of becoming the first woman president.
Despite initial Clinton family reservations, Howard Dean was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee last Saturday. There was much glee among Republicans at his victory, though it might be another case of "Watch what you wish for". Hillary can contrast herself with the feisty ex-Vermont governor as the sensible moderate. His take-over from Terry McAuliffe was in any event a case of the peaceful transfer of non-power, as in reality party policy is not set by party chairs but by candidates during elections.
In any event many Democrats say Dean is not the raving liberal he is sometimes depicted to be, but more of a formidable fundraiser and pragmatist. His misgivings about the war are even shared by some Republicans, though not, unsurprisingly, by one of its architects, former Pentagon adviser Richard Perle. Dean and Perle debated Iraq this week at Pacific University. In the exchanges - during which someone threw a shoe at Perle - Dean argued that Democrats were stronger than Republicans on defence, and that by going after Iraq rather than Iran or North Korea Bush had just "picked the low-hanging fruit". Perle mocked the Democrats, saying they had to "choose a physician to lead them", but was challenged about his prediction on September 22nd, 2003, that within a year there would be "a grand square in Baghdad named for President Bush". It would happen one day he insisted, but "I'd be a fool not to recognise that it did not happen on the schedule I had in mind."
While many Democrats like the idea that Dean will take a tough line on the Bush agenda, they are also happy with his promise that he will not run again for president.
At a time when the prospect of a woman US president seems closer to reality, the question of gender has become a burning topic at Harvard. Remarks last month by president Lawrence Summers that the "intrinsic aptitude" of women was a factor in their failure to match males in science grades set off a debate that has convulsed the university. Several professors are planning a vote of no confidence in Summers, a former treasury secretary, next week. Summers at first refused to confirm rumours of what he actually said at a closed conference on January 14th, but this week he bowed to pressure and released a transcript. It showed him arguing that intrinsic differences between the sexes, along with family and career pressures, probably played a bigger role than cultural factors and discrimination in explaining why fewer women got top jobs in science.
Summers has apologised repeatedly for what he said was an attempt to explain provocatively why men are more likely to have science and math test scores in the highest and lowest ranges, while women's scores are more clustered in the middle. He also pointed out in his speech that Catholics are under- represented in merchant banking, white men are rarely found among top basketball players and Jews don't get involved in farming.
His transcript confirmed to critics like Harvard Prof Everett Mendlesohn that Summers made sweeping claims "that women don't have the ability to do well in high-powered jobs". The Harvard president said that, "if I could turn back the clock, I would have spoken differently on matters so complex".
During his failed Senate campaign in Illinois last autumn, the conservative and family values champion Alan Keyes criticised Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, calling her a "selfish hedonist". In a radio interview the former Republican presidential candidate volunteered that "if my daughter were a lesbian, I'd look at her and say, 'That is a relationship that is based on selfish hedonism.' I would also tell my daughter that it's a sin and she needs to pray to the Lord God to help her deal with that sin."
It was revealed this week that Keyes's daughter Maya (19), who was working on his campaign, is indeed a lesbian. "As long as I was quiet about being gay or my politics, we got along," she said. Then she went on a protest against Bush's inauguration, and "my father didn't like that". She was thrown out of her parents' apartment and told not to expect any payments towards college. They no longer speak to her.