By the accusation of liberal bias ... the institutions that conservatives revere - the military, corporate America, organized religion, and the powerful conservative groups themselves - will be able to escape scrutiny and increase their influence.

Bringing democratic control to the conduct of foreign policy requires a struggle merely to force the issue onto the public agenda.

If bloggers are to improve our public discourse - helping busy and usually uninformed people make sense of the world - it is necessary to use some sort of standard with which to judge their reliability. Perhaps the answer (strictly advisory) is a body of their peers. Perhaps not.

President Obama has lowered taxes more than he has raised them, and they are today lower than they were in President Reagan's time. But you don't hear conservatives crowing about that.

As with almost every significant aspect of the Bush presidency, its handling of 9/11 was a catastrophe from start to finish.

More and more, Democrats are starting to worry they that they have a more um, colorful version of Jimmy Carter on their hands. Obama acts cool as a proverbial cucumber but that awful '70s show seems frightfully close to a rerun.

As a parent and a citizen, I'll take a Bill Gates (or Warren Buffett) over Steve Jobs every time. If we must have billionaires, better they should ignore Jobs's example and instead embrace the morality and wisdom of the great industrialist-philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.