Phil Gramm had a stump speech about how his mother's devotion kept him from being an academic failure in life. She got him into a special school that turned him around - under a government program for the children of deceased veterans. He was repeatedly asked at press conferences why he would then turn around and support draconian cuts in federal funding for education. He never had an answer.

This is America, and we don't restrict our battles over people's sex lives to 11 months a year

It is more a mentality than the actual places people live, as Jefferson and Hamilton would argue about - city versus country. For example, someone could have an empty place mentality yet be living in a condo in Boca Raton.

I kind of think that if you show conspiracy theorists a photo of the dead Bin Laden they will come up with an explanation for why it's really a Photoshoped picture of Bin Laden asleep. Or his dead cousin Fred. Donald Trump apparently believes that Bin Laden is dead, so that ought to be enough for the Middle East.

Well, it'd certainly be fascinating if we discovered that gays were better at being married than heterosexuals are. Talk about irony.

Personally, I'd be really glad to have a national conversation about whether to outlaw most forms of birth control. For once, the kids and their grandparents would find themselves on the same side.

The history of American women is all about leaving home - crossing oceans and continents, or getting jobs and living on their own.