Let's be clear: Has the U.S. ever made any mistakes? Of course.Is the U.S. at all like [Vladimir] Putin's regime? Not at all.

We should vigorously debate policy differences. We have too much all-or-nothing in American politics.

In the American constitutional system of three different branches, conflict - and I mean that peaceful, vigorous debate - it's a feature of our system, not a bug. We need less all-or - winner-take-all politics.

I think the category of perpetual adolescence, it's a new thing, and it's a dangerous thing. Adolescence is a pretty glorious concept. It's about intentionally transitioning from childhood to adulthood. Being stuck in adolescence - that's a hell. Peter Pan is a dystopia, and we forget that.

[Vladimir] Putin is an enemy of political dissent. The U.S. celebrates political dissent and the right for people to argue free from violence about places where our ideas are in conflict.

There are two ways that you can go wrong in our long-term fight against jihadis. One would be to not acknowledge that terrorism and especially jihadi-motivated terrorism, comes from specific places in the world and is connected to specific ideologies. But another way to fall off a cliff and harm our long-term interests would be to imply that the U.S. is at war with Islam.

While Admiral Neffenger is an impressive man, it is naive and dangerous to pretend installing one director can heal what ails TSA, the Department of Homeland Security needs to admit that it has a crisis of bureaucratic complacency - lacking an overarching vision and coherent measures of success and failure.