It was widespread that the politics of Tea Party people would be foreign to Ronald Reagan and they would be seen by him as frivolous and uninformed.

I don't think Reagan is primarily funny, and I don't think he's primarily marvelous; he's complicated.

The big lesson of Reagan is: To think that he was some sort of simple figurehead and didn't do the thinking and simply read a script in front of him woefully underestimates him. Ronald Reagan was an extremely intelligent person with a real V8 engine under his hood.

Ron Reagan amazingly qualifies as an honest broker. I asked him if he was a mamas boy and he said no, more of a papas boy. At the same time he was willing to say that his father had many shortcomings and needed to be held accountable.

If we went back to the imprisonment rate we had in the early '70s, something like four out of five people employed in the prison industry would lose their jobs. That's what you're up against.

It was natural to see the struggle for dignity for black people in America as a sister struggle of the Jewish struggle. So growing up, it was always a part of my breakfast cereal to think of myself as someone who was part of a larger struggle.

It is only education and understanding of the past that teaches us not to repeat history.