Anyone who has undergone home repair lately knows that your everyday artisan uses language so loosely and makes false promises so glibly as to make your politicians, even the presidential candidate, seem like a model of accuracy and rectitude. 'Be there Wednesday at nine,' the workman will tell you. It is a lie. He is humoring you. He says it to silence you, the way you tell a child you will take it to Disneyland if it will stop crying.

Baseball has a special place in our hearts. It is the game that shows us as we would like to be.

[On George H.W. Bush vs. Michael Dukakis:] Americans now know they can vote for a man who can't express his thoughts or a man who can't express his feelings.

And the propensity of weak and empty people to follow a leader into the darkness from which there is no return is still flourishing, as ever.

My friend Phil has a theory that the Lord, having made teenagers, felt constrained to make amends and so created the golden retriever.

Dogs, bless them, operate on the premise that human beings are fragile and require incessant applications of affection and reassurance. The random lick of a hand and the furry chin draped over the instep are calculated to let the shaky owner know that a friend is nearby.

You need the will to disarm the civilian population. If we can do it in Somalia, we can do it here.