When a president speaks that usually means a lot.

The ugliness can sometimes be super ugly, but also a warning sign of something down below.

The people who really have character make deep, unshakable connections to something outside themselves.

How can we expect young people to be rooted in things such as character, morality and honesty? How is one supposed to be at once an arrow soaring skyward and an oak planted firmly in the ground? The meritocratic culture hones strivers on every aspect of their lives save one - how to cultivate character.

The things that make them similar - their machismo, their expansionary braggadocio - is going to turn them I think into bitter and dangerous enemies. We will look back on this moment where we thought Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump were sort of close as a moment of bitter irony, when they get into a schoolyard display against each other, amping up each other's worst tendencies and putting the two countries in some sort of scary position.

Things that change history tend to be organized.

I'm beginning to think [Ted] Cruz had a good convention, that if [Donald] Trump goes down, Cruz is pretty well positioned to be the Republican major figure in four, six or even within two years.