The five million people who watch cable news are the political nation, the people who really care.

We all work for media, we all make mistakes all the time. That's inevitable. What the difference between a responsible journalistic institution is, does it care whether it makes mistakes or not? And does it correct them?

People who want to wage cultural wars ought to keep in mind that cultural views often don't move at all for a very long time, but when they move they can move very fast.

But the thought leaders on talk radio and Fox do more than shape opinion. Backed by their own wing of the book-publishing industry and supported by think tanks that increasingly function as public-relations agencies, conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics.

Events don't happen because I write a speech. I am allowed to write a speech because events are going to happen.

The system has evolved to protect parties from people like Donald Trump. It really is true that people without well-established public records, without proven capability in public service, without tested beliefs and at least apparently under the influence of a foreign power, such people are screened out by major parties.

My view on candidates on money is unless it's proven that the donor stole the money, the campaign keeps the money.