Iran is not a make-believe country. It is a real country populated by some 75 million people - real people; including, I daresay, a majority who are philosophically and by education inclined toward the modern, secular world, and particularly American values.

The Tea Party knows that continuing to delay charting a course to spending reform hurts everybody.

I believe in the Constitution. I believe in separation of powers. I believe in the rule of law. I believe in limited government. And these are principles and policies that apparently neither the national Republican nor the national Democrat Party believes in. I believe great damage is being done to our Constitution, and I see no remedy at all, no likelihood of that changing, if we rely on the two parties to field our candidates for national office.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to argue that laws written in the 1970s are adequate for today's intelligence challenges.

Whether it's a sitting president when I was an impeachment manager, or a Republican president who has taken liberties with adherence to the law, to me the standard is the same.

The Constitution never even mentions political parties, let alone the Republican and Democratic parties, yet all the election laws help to protect them from competition.

The move to tax Internet sales, clothed as a 'fairness' issue, is the typical 'wolf-in-sheep's-clothing' ploy so often used by governments unwilling to cut expenditures to match revenues. It matters not whether its proponents have a 'D' or an 'R' after their name. It is a tax increase in either case.