Kerry asks Americans to look at the evidence. Bush asks people to believe.

Women have gained access to the institutions, but not enough power to overhaul them.

You can teach someone who cares to write columns, but you can’t teach someone who writes columns to care.

Our 'mistakes' become our crucial parts, sometimes our best parts, of the lives we have made.

All in all, I am not surprised that the people who want to unravel the social contract start with young adults. Those who are urged to feel afraid, very afraid, have both the greatest sense of independence and the most finely honed skepticism about government.

Welfare is ... the victim of national compassion fatigue.

Alternative Lifestyles, the emotional fly-drive packages of our times, come equipped with a set of clothes, a choice of authors, a limited menu of sports and a discount coupon book of clichés.