With 'swift-boating' now being used by the ignorant as a synonym for false charges, it's worth remembering that it was John Kerry who had to retract his statement about his secret Christmas mission to Cambodia, despite it having allegedly been 'seared, seared' into his memory.

[W]hen you align yourself exclusively with one party, and weaponize yourself in that party's cause, you're going to pay the price when the other party is in power. That's the price you pay for whoring yourself out.

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

Democrats don't represent the taxpayers, they represent the tax-consumers.

What's wrong with "the new elite?" Forget cultural insularity or smugness. The main problem with the "new elite" is that they're not an elite at all. That is, they aren't particularly smart, or competent.

Diplomacy has more to do with (credible) threats than with sweet reason. And threats from America are a lot more credible, nowadays.

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.