Almost no one under 60 remembers what fundraising was like before Watergate. Until the 1970s, campaign money was collected by "bagmen," familiar characters from the world of organized crime. As fans of Boardwalk Empire know, a bagman is a political fixer who walked around with stacks of $100 and $1,000 bills. At lower levels, he used brown paper bags. In presidential campaigns, the cash was more likely to be in briefcases. Classier that way.

The key to fixing education is better teaching, and the key to better teaching is figuring out who can teach and who can't.

The price of loyalty is incompetence.

The only reason the House hasn't done even more damage is that the Senate often sands down the most noxious ideas, making the bills merely bad, not disastrous.

Unless the digital divide is narrowed soon, the United States may be headed to the class warfare of a century ago, the last time the economy changed so fundamentally. It won't be pleasant.

With his ABC News experience, perhaps Pierre Salinger's next job could be cohosting-with Oliver Stone-a 24-hour Conspiracy Network.

They say that 'history is an argument without end.' In Thompson's skillful hands, this momentous argument between two old friends on the most critical issue of the last century is thus history at its best. Thompson's judicious and delicious depiction of Nitze and Kennan will fascinate anyone who cares about the Cold War or the ways that human beings shape the future.