Americans get mad as hell with reasonable frequency but quickly return to their families and sitcoms.

The White House and the media need one another in order to be successful in their jobs. The White House depends on the media to make its case to the public; the media need the White House to fill their airtime and news columns.

Over one in five American children is living in poverty, and the number is rising.

America's great newspapers have staffs that range from 50 percent to 70 percent of what they were just a few years ago.

Americans continue to suffer from a notoriously short attention span. They get mad as hell with reasonable frequency, but quickly return to their families and sitcoms. Meanwhile, the corporate lobbies stay right where they are, outlasting all the populist hysteria.

One of the many, many salutary aspects of Barack Obama's impending presidential nomination is the sea change his victory marks in the battle for the mind-set of the American foreign policy establishment.

Americans have always evinced some distrust of government, but the current situation has exacerbated this to a degree that may be unprecedented.