For me, friendship has always been the most accessible of relationships - certainly far more so than romantic love. Friendship, I learned, provided a buffer in the interplay of emotions, a distance that made the risk of intimacy bearable, a space that allowed the other person to remain safely another person.

...when a reporter is quoting Sid Blumenthal on president Bush, you know he's scraping the barrel.

I've never been a partisan, I've never been a Republican, I've never been a Democrat, ever, which is why I was very frustrated being called a gay Republican when I never attached myself to that.

I think essentially corrupting institutions in Washington are turning conservatism into something that is really very creepy, but also emotionally and psychically powerful for people.

All s, like all human beings, get many things wrong. Ronald Reagan's extraordinary achievement as of the U.S. was to succeed in getting the two biggest challenges of his time right: defeating the Soviet Union and reviving the American economy and spirit. Neither of those achievements was inevitable. Both were fiercely opposed at the time. But he persisted; his visionary focus matched only by a gentleness of character and a brilliance of rhetoric.

No American should be forced to choose between their spouse and their country.

The dirty little secret of journalism is that it really isn't a profession, it's a craft. All you need is a telephone and a conscience and you're all set.