For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norms, even our cultural ideal.

The greatest felony in the news business today is to be behind, or to miss a big story. So speed and quantity substitute for thoroughness and quality, for accuracy and context.

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.

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.

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

What will a Hillary Clinton presidency look like? The answer by now seems obvious: It will look like her presidential campaign, which in turn looks increasingly like the first Clinton presidency. Which is to say, high-minded ideals, lowered execution, half truths, outright lies (and imaginary flights), take-no prisoners politics, some very good policy ideas, a presidential spouse given to wallowing in anger and self-pity, and a succession of aides and surrogates pushed under the bus when things don't go right. Which is to say, often.