Say what you want to about our brand of highly marketed politics, it has been a virtual stranger in other parts of the world. Television as a tool for "getting the message across" was something avoided in Britain up until the advent of Margaret Thatcher. Prior to that it was the occasional odd televised Press conference and holiday message. But mostly it was ignored and viewed much the same way as one would view bacteria.

In retrospect, it was really only during the time of the 1960 election that TV became a medium of great potential in U.S. politics, and people like JFK who saw that potential ran with it. It has never been the same since.

Here is a radio documentary first aired by the BBC World Service on December 31, 2000 which traces the evolution of TV and Politics in Britain from the post-World War 2 period all the way up to Tony Blair - at the time of this broadcast there still were no televised debates as those didn't happen until 2010.

It's a fascinating comparison in just how the message is put across and how image has shaped our politics in a much more all-encompassing way than in other countries.

It could probably explain why there's been a recent trend in Britain to have all politicians looking somewhat the same, just as we do.

Heaven help the world from the invasion of the clueless and ruthless Pretty People. But alas, I'm afraid it may be too late . . . .

Continuing the occasional series about elections past, I ran across this address by Paul Tsongas from March 19, 1992 in which he announced dropping (or suspending his campaign as they politely call it) his bid for the Presidential nomination for 1992.

After a hopeful start as one of the first to declare his desire to run, Tsongas' campaign gained momentum during the early stages when Bill Clinton's campaign was seen as faltering and was seen as a front runner in the race. But, in what became Clinton Adviser James Carville's memorable phrase "the comeback kid", Bill Clinton won a surprising victory in the New Hampshire primaries and Tsongas' campaign never got back on track and on March 19th Tsongas called it quits.

Here is that address via NPR.

Seems the issue of Healthcare was having its troubles on this day in 1994 too.

Faced with dwindling support in Congress and a reported drop in popularity in the Polls, President Clinton readied to take his Healthcare Plan message to a series of Town Hall meetings in the hopes of drumming up support. Further evidence this issue has a history and goes way-way back. Even further than 1994.

Elsewhere - the Teamsters were girding up for a possible walkout of nationwide Freight haulers. The only thing holding them back was a dwindling membership and a growing number of non-union companies affected by a walkout. Don't Ask-Don't Tell was under fire as a Judge ruled that 6 Gays kicked out of the service for violating the law couldn't be removed until the case was decided.

The Ukraine sent a 1,000 Peacekeeping troops to Bosnia. The first Palestinian exiles were allowed back into Gaza. Wall Street was heading up on optimistic news, or a "correction" as some called it.

The Arkansas Razorbacks won their first NCAA Championship, defeating Duke in a nail biter.

Darryl Strawberry heads off to rehab and a riot broke out at a Grateful Dead concert in Orlando, Florida.

All that and so much more from this April 5th in 1994, as reported on The CBS World News Roundup.

Domestic goings on dominated the news this Leap Year Day in 1996.

President Clinton was hosting a Media Summit on the subject of Sex & Violence on TV with much political hay being harvested in the way of the proposed Telecommunications Reform Bill. The topic was a popular one with everyone agreeing things were getting just a bit out of hand.

Elsewhere, FBI Regulators decided not to sue First Lady Hillary Clinton over the alleged Whitewater affair. Meanwhile, the House narrowly refused Government subsidies to expire for Sugar and Peanuts, but did vote to end Dairy subsidies.

On the GOP Primary front - Steve Forbes was making news on this day. He was given the okay to appear on the New York Primary ballot while some in the GOP accused Forbes of "buying" his Arizona Primary win. The Candidates were heading South this day, to get ready for the next batch of Primaries and the final debate being held in Columbia South Carolina later on in the day.

40 people were arrested and 4 gangs were said to be involved in a rash of warehouse robberies and the kidnapping of High-Tech industry executives in California's Silicone Valley. the robberies were said to net a low-ball figure of $500,000 per heist and a high-ball figure of $10 million per. Nothing to sneeze at. And drug-trafficking was muddled in there too.

The Cuban exile group "Brothers To The Rescue" were discovered to be aligned with not only the Cuban Government but also the FBI, playing both ends of the equation.

A judge refused to throw out Assisted Suicide charges against Dr. Jack Kevorkian - again.

And singer Alanis Morissette scored huge at the Grammy's, winning for her multi-multi-platinum Jagged Little Pill debut. Quick: Name a tune.

And that's how it went for February 29, 1996 as told to the curious among us by The CBS World News Roundup.

The thread for News on January 27th in 1996 seemed to have a lot to do with standoffs and face-downs. Starting with news that chemical heir John DuPont shot and killed Olympic wrestler Dave Schultz and had barricaded himself in the bedroom of the mansion on his 600 acre estate outside Philadelphia and was forcing a standoff with Police had people wondering about the lethal combination of wealth and mental illness.

A standoff of another kind was averted. This one on Capitol Hill where a Stop-Gap Spending Bill was given an eleventh hour approval and instant signing by President Clinton, thus averting a third threatened government shutdown. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich wasn't happy, saying it was all media's fault that he didn't get his way and was promising fireworks when the issue would be creeping up again after March 15th.

Another kind of stand-off/face-down went on with the Whitewater Probe. The Grand Jury had finished hearing testimony of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and there were hints this thing was going to get political, with the ever-present Ken Starr in charge of the probe hinting at further questioning of Clinton in the near future.

And the OJ Simpson Civil Suit trial was put on hold as his Grand Jury Deposition seemed to drag on forever.

But everyone was looking forward to Super Bowl XXX which was scheduled to get going the next day.

When in doubt, throw a football.

And so went this particular day in Paradise, for January 27, 1996 as reported on The CBS World News Roundup.

On this day in 1998, The Philippines were celebrating their newly sworn-in President former Box Office Attraction Joseph Estrada. Nobody in America seemed to be particularly taken by the nuance, since we'd weathered almost an entire decade with one. Still, Estrada had his work cut out for him. And Secretary General Kofi Annan paid a visit to the Military government of Nigeria in an attempt to get them interested in trying out Democracy for a change. Speaking of Hopeful, President Clinton while visiting China remarked that he was optimistic some form of improved relations could happen between the U.S. and Iran. Just exactly when and how was another story. Italy, however had no problems cozying up to the Iranians as Prime Minister Romano Prodi touched down in Tehran on a first-ever State visit by the Italian government.

Speaking of governments, the French were busy touting the results of their own-generated findings on Nuclear testing in the South Pacific. It seems, after some 190 nuclear tests, both above ground and below ground, the government proclaimed nothing harmful ever came of them and that radiation levels were so low they barely cracked the Geiger counter. Skeptics abounded and the likes of Greenpeace called the French somewhat less than realistic in their disclosures.

On the subject of disclosures, the UN IEAA were going back and forth on Nuclear inspections of various facilities being run in Baghdad getting ready to put the inspections on a low-key footing. It wasn't the nuclear weaponry they were so concerned about as much as all the chemicals they had lying around and those chemical warheads cammed with the nerve agent V-X they were rumored to have had, and that the Iraqi's were falling over themselves denying.

And this day in 1998 marked the one year anniversary since Britain handed over Hong-Kong to the Chinese. The one year celebration was considerably more low-key than the blow-out the previous year.

It also marked the opening in Frankfurt of the first European Central Bank in anticipation of the single currency of the EU. scheduled to come in the next year.

And that was June 30, 1998 as reported on the BBC World Service Newsdesk program.

Twelve years ago to the day, President Clinton addressed the nation, telling of the U.S. launching missiles and air strikes into Kosovo, attempting to dislodge the grip Slobodan Milosevic had over rebel forces fighting for independence and putting a halt to the atrocities inflicted on the population of ethnic Albanians.

Ivo Daalder (Brookings Institution): “This is one of the things that is worrisome. The objectives that are laid out here are . .remain quite uh, quite vague. There is the hope still, I believe, in the Administration and NATO that after some air strikes Mister Milosevic will come to his senses. It really hasn’t answered the question yet of what happens if he doesn’t.”

Robert Siegel (NPR): “One answer is that NATO will keep doing this, week after week after week. But then there is another question which is, should ground forces be introduced into Kosovo?”

Ivo Daalder: “Well then, even the question is, if one were to do this for weeks and weeks and weeks, and if we were to put ground forces in, what’s the purpose of doing so? If the purpose is to help the Kosovar Albanians, who have declared that, after a year of suffering horrendous attacks by Serb forces, that they want to be independent, are we ready to use our air power and perhaps our ground forces to protect what will become, in that case a quasi-independent if not real independent state of Kosovo? That is the question that hangs above the address of the President tonight.”

Really?

Here are items from two days - March 23rd and 24th. The 23rd is via the BBC World Service Newshour when talks had broken down and diplomacy looked like it had failed and the 24th broadcast is the Clinton address and news of the bombings.

The BBC Newshour asks the question of how NATO determines who gets military support, since the question was brought about that Kosovo was getting that many other countries, going through upheavals were not. Interesting, since the question is now being asked "why Libya and why not Yemen? And How about Ivory Coast?"

It's fascinating that history is so often repeated for our amazement, but I find it eerie that it so often happens around the same day.

On this day in 1998 it was all about Iraq and the infamous Weapons Of Mass Destruction. Addressing the nation from the Department of Defense, President Clinton prepared everyone for what was going to be a series of air strikes and stepped up sanctions against the regime of Saddam Hussein. Iraq, it seemed, was the recurring thorn in everyone's side and in 1998 it was no different.

President Clinton: “Despite Iraq’s deceptions UNSCOM has, nevertheless done a remarkable job. It’s inspectors, the eyes and ears of the civilized world, have uncovered and destroyed more weapons of mass destruction capacity than was destroyed during the Gulf War. This includes nearly 40,000 chemical weapons, more than 100,000 gallons of chemical weapons agents, 48 operational missiles, 30 warheads specifically fitted for chemical and biological weapons, and a massive biological weapons facility at Al-Hakim, equipped to produce Anthrax and other deadly agents. Over the past few months as they have come closer and closer to rooting out Iraq’s remaining nuclear capacity, Saddam has undertaken yet another gambit to thwart their ambition. By imposing debilitating conditions on the inspectors, and declaring key sites which have still not been inspected off-limits, including I might add, one palace in Baghdad, more than 2600 acres large. By comparison when you hear all this business about Presidential sites reflect our sovereignty, why do you want to come into a residence, the White House complex is 18 acres, so you’ll have some feel for this. One of these Presidential sites is about the size of Washington D.C. – that’s about . . .how many acres did you tell me it was? Forty thousand acres. We’re not talking about a few rooms here with delicate personal matters involved.”

Well . . .we all know how that story ended.

Here is the complete address, along with comments by Defense Secretary Cohen and vice-President Gore and post-address analysis by NPR correspondents.

December 3, 1999. Busy day. The Mars Polar Lander was lost and NASA wasn't happy about it. The economy, on the other hand, was showing signs of improvement and President Clinton let everyone know about it.

Pres. Clinton: “The report should finally put to rest the old myths about the new economy. The 20 million new jobs we’ve created mostly are high wage, not low wage jobs.”

Meanwhile, the Battle In Seattle was continuing with the World Trade Conference drawing to a close, the air thick with pepper spray. But the Stock Market was going leaps and bounds.

Depending on what you were doing and where you were, it was either a good day or a weird one. It was a day nonetheless with 24 hours like all the others. And this edition of the CBS World News Roundup from December 3rd is a reminder.

After three and a half years of one of the bloodiest, most vicious wars in recent memory, the war in Bosnia had reached a peace settlement. In an eleventh hour agreement, the warring sides agreed to end the conflict and established territories under the control of the various warring factions.

President Clinton: “About an hour ago I spoke with Secretary Christopher in Dayton Ohio. He informed me that the Presidents of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia have reached a peace agreement to end the war in Bosnia. To end the worst conflict in Europe since World War 2.”

It also established a peace keeping force of which the U.S. contributed 20,000 troops to the region. The agreement would be signed in December and the slow return to peace began shortly after.

Here is a report of the initial response to acceptance of the settlement on November 21st and the follow up news and ramifications of the agreement from the 22nd.