Ever since John Kennedy, Democrats have had a weakness for dashing younger men like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and, I suppose, Jimmy Carter. They balance their tickets with senior statesmen - Lyndon Johnson, Joe Biden, Walter Mondale. (Al Gore was young but played ancient).

Novel writing should never be confused with journalism. Unfortunately, in the case of Primary Colors, a fair number of journalists confused.

Barack Obama's inspirational whoosh to the presidency in 2008 was unusual. Most campaigns are less exhilarating; indeed, they are downright disappointing - until someone wins.

Political courage requires clarity. The Obama Administration chose the tortured route of arguing the legality of the individual mandate via the interstate commerce clause for one simple reason: it did not want to take the political risk of allowing opponents to call it a tax increase. That was stupid. The Republicans were calling it a tax increase anyway.

We`re facing a very different sort of threat now, a more amorphous threat, al Qaeda, terrorism, and so on. And so the military has abandoned the two-war strategy.

I came to political consciousness with John F. Kennedy's magnificent 1961 Inaugural Address. It seemed the start of something fresh and exciting, and it was.

Bush promised a foreign policy of humility and a domestic policy of compassion. He has given us a foreign policy of arrogance and a domestic policy that is cynical, myopic and cruel.