To this culture warrior, gay marriage is not a vital issue. I don't believe the republic will collapse if Larry marries Brendan. However, it is clear that most Americans want heterosexual marriage to maintain its special place in American society. And as long as gays are not penalized in the civil arena, I think the folks should make the call at the ballot box. Traditional marriage is widely seen as a social stabilizer, and I believe that is true.

We had an eyeball-to-eyeball agreement at a restaurant before I came back that, if I came back, he would never talk to me that way again or I was simply saying no.

At the end of the day, every child has learned the Lesson of Spin: Almost every wrong action can be stripped of consequences, along with the need for feelings of guilt and remorse.

I was an advocate of the deregulation movement and I made - along with a lot of other smart people - a fundamental mistake. The financial industry undergirded the entire economy and if it is made riskier by deregulation and collapses in widespread bankruptcies as what happened in 2008, the entire economy freezes because it runs on credit.

I'm a sensationalist. I'm a big mouth. I get attention. In this world you have to - if you want a mass-market presentation, you have to get attention.

If you start paying attention to Tom Hanks, you realize that he's not the Jimmy Stewart of our age. He's a very nice man. Everyone that I know that knows him says he's a great father. But, let's not pretend that he's something that he's not. He's just like George Clooney. He's a very radical leftist.

Barack Obama will go down alongside George W. Bush in that realm as middling presidents because both made too many mistakes to be categorized as an effective, good president.