Teddy Kennedy rose to become a liberal lion by collaborating with Republicans.

Gun-related violence and murders are concentrated among blacks and Latinos in big cities.

Yesterday NPR fired me for telling the truth. The truth is that I worry when I am getting on an airplane and see people dressed in garb that identifies them first and foremost as Muslims. This is not a bigoted statement. It is a statement of my feelings, my fears after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 by radical Muslims.

Democrats cannot win elections without capturing the votes of independent-minded swing voters. And that is where writing off the Tea Party as a bunch of racist kooks becomes self-destructive. The Tea Party outrage over health-care reform, deficit spending and entitlements run amok is no fringe concern.

Teddy Kennedy rose to become a liberal lion by collaborating with Republicans.

It's almost a shock to me to go into places, and there's smoking these days. Boy, my life has changed, because everybody used to smoke.

I don't think there's any shortage of tough, sometimes vicious rhetoric about President Barack Obama coming from the right. Talk radio shows dominated by conservatives.