“At the heart of the matter is a battle between wish and fear. Fear generally proves stronger than a wish, but it leaves a taste of disappointment on the tongue.”

“This isn't to deny that there were fierce arguments, at the time and ever since, about the causes and goals of both the Civil War and the Second World War. But 1861 and 1941 each created a common n...”

“The attacks of 9/11 were the biggest surprise in American history, and for the past ten years we haven't stopped being surprised. The war on terror has had no discernible trajectory, and, unlike ot...”

“The slow, mismanaged arrival of armored vehicles and bulletproof plates for flak vests was only the most conspicuous demonstration of how the Iraq War, like every war -- just or unjust, won or lost...”

“[O]nce demagogy and falsehoods become routine, there isnt much for the political journalist to do except handicap the race and report on the candidates mood.”

“[T]he enduring problem for liberals, as for everyone else, is not whether history will judge them wise or foolish regarding the war on terrorism; it is, rather, the way that the past decade has spl...”

“When a new baby is expected mother has 9 months to prepare the family and the kitchen for her departure!”

“Well, as Hannah Arendt famously said, there can be a banal aspect to evil. In other words, it doesn't present always. I mean, often what you're meeting is a very mediocre person. But nonetheless, y...”

“I had enough of a story churning in my head that combined all the elements of the daythe interview, the concert, the after-partys private sessionwhen he put his guitar away and asked me if I had ev...”

“...We are all Federalists,and we are all Republicans.”

“What we need most right now, at this moment, is a kind of patriotic grace - a grace that takes the long view, apprehends the moment we're in, comes up with ways of dealing with it, and eschews the ...”

“The whole point about corruption in politics is that it can't be done, or done properly, without a bipartisan consensus.”

“If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people-their health, their hou...”

“We had a choice between Democrats who couldn't learn from the past and Republicans who couldn't stop living in it...”

“We now have the liberal playbook and we know what they are doing, and we are using it against them. Unlike the Democrats though, we aren't out to destroy our society, we are out to save it.”