Radical thought has inspired many of the great political and social reform movements in American history, from ending slavery to establishing the minimum wage.

At heart, Sussman was a theoretician. In another age, he might have been a Talmudic scholar. He had cultivated a Socratic method, zinging question after question at the reporters: Who moved over from Commerce to CRP with Stans? What about Mitchell's secretary? Why won't anybody say when Liddy went to the White House or who worked with him there? Mitchell and Stans both ran the budget committee, right? What does that tell you? Then Sussman would puff on his pipe, a satisfied grin on his face.

The Congress is a dysfunctional institution; its broken. One of our three branches of government is broken.

There had always been black people in and out of our house, and from the outset I had been taught that for them life was defined by struggle and filled with injustice.

Good journalism should challenge people, not just mindlessly amuse them.

Radical thought has inspired many of the great political and social reform movements in American history, from ending slavery to establishing the minimum wage.

In the John Paul II days, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had the advantage of staying in his cupboard - the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - exchanging views only with the Pope, and speaking publicly only through carefully written missives on doctrinal issues.