America glories in its tradition of the self-made individual. Political candidates compete to be a friend to entrepreneurs, and policymakers, imagining the next Microsoft or Google, design laws to back the innovator in the garage.

America glories in its tradition of the self-made individual. Political candidates compete to be a friend to entrepreneurs, and policymakers, imagining the next Microsoft or Google, design laws to back the innovator in the garage.

Outside events can change a presidential campaign, a president, and the history of the nation: the Iranian hostage crisis, the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, the downing of the helicopter in Mogadishu, Somalia, the suicide attack on the USS Cole, and, of course, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

A messy participatory process is representative democracy at its best.

If we cannot come together to pause, to respect our dead and the heroic lives of meaning they led, then ours is truly a civilization lost.

At some point he has to show that he has a vision of a better way. He can't just say 'The future is bleak, follow me.' Because no one will.

Defending birthright citizenship is about being on the right side of liberty. The 14th Amendment is a great legacy of the Republican Party.