You can be as critical as you want of Black Lives Matter. I'm critical of him, too. But to say that they have caused shooting of police officers, I think is a bridge too far.

What do you do in a novel? You take recognizable characters from your own life, and you fantasize about what they're really like.

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.

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.

Dictating to dictators doesn't work; they are congenitally delusional about their own indispensability.

Cynicism is what passes for insight among the mediocre.