Bin Laden wasn't all that central to the terrorist network any more, but taking him down created a kind of national catharsis. It's been a really, really long time since we had something to celebrate that didn't involve a sports team. I'd rather it had been a non-death-related occasion, but we'll take what we can get.

Over the long run, many of Perry's stances boil down to following the money.

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

As long as we decline to allow sick uninsured people to just lie down and die on the side of the road, everybody has to have insurance for the health care system to work sanely.

Any time you write history, you insert your opinion. You pick and choose what you are going to write about. I feel really happy not inserting myself. I spend too much of my life inserting myself. It's just great to let other people carry the narrative.

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

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.