A political ideology is a very handy thing to have. It's a real time-saver, because it tells you what you think about things you know nothing about.
Hendrik HertzbergWhere is it written that if you don't like religion you are somehow disqualified from being a legitimate American? What was Mark Twain, a Russian?
Hendrik HertzbergA "communist/socialist/progressive" is an oxymoron, like an "atheist/evangelical Christian/Muslim."
Hendrik HertzbergThe filibuster is an affront to commonly understood democratic norms, but then so is the Senate.
Hendrik HertzbergThe dismaying truth is that birtherism is part of a larger pattern of rejection of reality that has taken hold of intimidating segments of one of the two political parties that alternate in power in our governing institutions. It is akin to the view that global warming is a hoax, or that the budget can be balanced through spending cuts alone, or that contraception causes abortion, or that evolution is just another theory, on a par with the theory that the earth is six thousand years old.
Hendrik Hertzberg