A friendship between reporter and source lasts only until it is profitable for one to betray the other.

I don't understand men. I don't even understand what I don't understand about men.

For two centuries, the South has feared a takeover by blacks or the feds. In Obama, they have both.

Eric Schmidt looks innocent enough, with his watercolor blue eyes and his tiny office full of toys and his Google campus stocked with volleyball courts and unlocked bikes and wheat-grass shots and cereal dispensers and Haribo Gummi Bears and heated toilet seats and herb gardens and parking lots with cords hanging to plug in electric cars.

President Bush was once asked which Presidential speech he admired most. He replied that it was the one Teddy Roosevelt had in his pocket that had helped cushion the blow of a would-be assassin's bullet.

The Obamas, especially Michelle, have radiated the sense that Americans do not appreciate what they sacrifice by living in a gilded cage. They've forgotten Rule No. 1 of politics: No one sheds tears for anyone lucky enough to live at the White House.

When you're young, and even at times when you're older, it's hard to fathom this: What needs to be nurtured is the stuff that's different, that sets you apart from the pack, rather than the stuff that helps you blend in.