Imagine filling a college with the first 1,000 students to get perfect SATs. Whatever the racial composition of that class would be, the notion seems absurd because we know that college in America is supposed to be about creating citizens and leaders in a diverse nation.

The strongest streak in the American character is a fierce pragmatism that mistrust blind ideology of every stripe and insists on finding what really works.

Conservatives forget that citizenship is more than a thing to withhold from immigrants. Progressives forget it's more than a set of rights.

You want to defend citizenship? Don't persecute or isolate those without papers. Just live like a citizen. That'd be a first-class way to be American.

Identity in America is complicated but it's also simple: it's about whom you identify with and who identifies with you.

I had heard so much negative talk about our generation, that we're slackers and young fogies, that I knew wasn't true of the people I know.

Throughout this country's history there have of course been systematic efforts to create an official underclass.