As the interned American citizens of Japanese descent learned, the Bill of Rights provided them with little protection when it was needed.

The proverbial thirteenth chime of the clock - is not only wrong itself, but calls into question everything that came before it.

The nannyism is partly to distract from the corruption — and partly just another opportunity to leverage it. A good general rule is that the more a government wants to run its citizens’ lives, the worse job it will do at the most basic tasks of government.

But remember: All this talk of tolerance and diversity is basically just a way for one group of white people to pursue power over other groups of white people. It's not about actually helping anyone.

The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.

One reason that a lot of people see me as cheerful and optimistic is that my expectations are really rather low.

As I have said, the best Bush strategy is to put Congress on TV as often as possible.