I want people to understand that, look, we're in a period of democratic deficit, democratic recession. There are fewer democracies in the world today than in 2005, and in many of the countries that are still technically democracies, we're seeing a reduction in the rule of law. And that's especially true in Central Europe, but it's also true of places like South Africa, the Philippines.

Crown Prince Rupprecht, the heir to the throne of Bavaria who commanded the army group facing the British at the Somme, was the senior direct lineal heir of James Stuart, the Old Pretender of 1715. Had there been any Jacobites left in Britain in 1916, they would have had to regard this south German prince as their rightful king.

A novel makes it possible to understand not just events, but the people who control the events; not only their choices, but also their motives.

I always believed as a speechwriter that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the ideas that underlay those words. And the big shock to me has been that although the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas. And that is the root of, maybe, everything.

We all have more at stake in the rules of the game than we do in the outcomes of the game. When that changes, that's when you begin to lose democracy.

Republicans have been fleeced and exploited and lied to by a conservative entertainment complex.

People who watch a lot of Fox come away knowing a lot less about important world events.