As a novelist, I have a somewhat higher soapbox to stand on than most people do when it comes to talking back to the merchants of fear.

There's nothing noble or selfless about politicians and there never has been. Putting it charitably, Profiles in Courage is a compendium of Democratic mythology, ghostwritten for an ambitious young Massachusetts Senator who never did a thing for himself if he could pay to have it done by others.

The only hope we have is the Internet. We must strive to keep it free.

We are expected to believe that anyone who objects to the Department of Homeland Security or the USA Patriot Act is a terrorist, and that the only way to preserve our freedom is to hand it over to the government for safekeeping.

The function of government is to provide you with service; the function of the media is to supply the Vaseline.

As to the media, they are protected by the First Amendment, as they should be.

Gun control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her panty hose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound.