Bush is good at stating the obviously untrue.

Religion and politics are supposed to be separate.

Hospice means end-of-life care. The admission ticket is a diagnosis from a doctor that you have six months or less to live.

If there is a ground zero in the cultural wars, it is Missouri, a state where pro-life groups are strong and well organized and their agenda dominates local politics.

If you think of life and death on a continuum, finding the point where it tips is complicated. It cuts across all political lines and gets to the root of our humanity. It requires faith informed by years of intimacy that you're doing what's right for your loved one.

Politics is so much about serendipity that we've got to have a bigger pool of women, so that when people drop out of the process, you've got others to turn to.

But I think what we're coming to grips with is the fact that we actually have a mercenary Army, and it doesn't have a nice ring to it. We call it 'volunteers', but we're basically paying people to serve their country. And if you're going to pay people and have a mercenary Army, you're going to have to pay the market rate. And so the bounties are going up—more money for tuition, higher enlistment bonuses—and I think it's appropriate.