Hyperbole expands in societies where articulateness atrophies.

In 1976, Jimmy Carter - peanut farmer; carried his own suitcase, imagine that - somewhat tapped America's durable but shallow reservoir of populism. By 1980, ordinariness in high office had lost its allure.

National security rests on the credible threat of a form of warfare universally condemned since the Dark Ages, the wholesale slaughter of noncombatants.

For Conservatives, seeing is believing; for liberals, believing is seeing.

All politics takes place on a slippery slope. The most important four words in politics are up to a point.

When liberals advocate a value-added tax, conservatives should respond: Taxing consumption has merits, so we will consider it - after the 16th Amendment is repealed.

If your job is to leaven ordinary lives with elevating spectacle, be elevating or be gone.