Venezuela has gone from being a democratic country 15 years ago to being totally not a democracy today. Usually that de-democratization doesn't take the form of a heavy handed police state.

My mom was truly an iconic figure, a great journalist and a pioneering woman who died at 54 of cancer without ever having revealed to viewers that she was ill.

One of the reasons I've been interested in the US health care is that here is something you can do, that could lift one of the largest burdens of worry from the shoulders of tens of millions of people for whom the rest of the economy isn't working. A lot of the things that are in Obamacare that Republicans don't like were deliberately put there to force Republicans to negotiate. Republicans wouldn't negotiate, so we got Obamacare with all of the fur on it. Once it's there, of course, it's very hard to take health care benefits away from people, as the Republicans discovered.

As thrilling as it was, speechwriting is ultimately frustrating for someone who wants to be a writer.

So if I have two pieces of cake, do I have twice as good an experience as the first piece of cake? One of the things I've found in life is that the first piece of cake is the best.

Canada has a real civil service, which the United States doesn't have, an independent civil service. Canada also has a stronger federal system.

Reagan survived the Iran-Contra scandal because the elements of it that were illegal (aiding anti-communist Nicaraguans) were popular and the things that were unpopular (arming the Iranians) were quite legal.