You want a culture where citizens are free to express themselves and so live in the openness necessary to the functioning of a successful economy? Israel has a free press, much of it openly hostile to the parties in power.

It has never made any sense to argue that, unique among the people of the world, Arabs are more concerned on a day-to-day basis about the treatment of people they don't know than they are about how they're going to put food on their own tables, or whether their sons will ever find a job.

Some candidates need to say provocative things that make noise to break through the media muffle and get themselves noticed.

The idea that the rest of the world was somehow being held hostage by the Arab-Israeli conflict once had a minimal basis in reality. In the first 20 years of Israel's existence, every Arab country was in an active state of war with the Jewish state.

As a member of the Mormon church, Romney is instructed to tithe 10 percent of his income. That's in keeping with most charitable giving: Religious institutions get about one-third of all contributions, according to 'The American' magazine.

Memories of the last nine years have turned Ground Zero from a site of horror, to a reminder of grief, to an occasion for ludicrous artistic posturing - and now to something very close to parody.

America may be in a dour condition, but it is not going to elect a dour president.