In my experience, it's not just that serious books get a hearing on comedy shows. But serious books get a serious hearing, as well as a funny one, on comedy shows.

While analogies are useful, however, they can also be misleading. They smuggle in assumptions that can be wrong.

The values, the programs, the formula, the determination, and the patriotism responsible for America's past success are still here to be tapped.

The attacks of September 11, 2001, were spectacular, riveting, grim, costly and searing. The shock that they caused reverberated throughout the world. What happened in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania ended the lives of thousands of people and changed the lives of many more. But they did not change the world.

The windfall of great riches can, if mismanaged, make things worse, not better, for the recipients.

The government can give citizens opportunity and it's their responsibility to take advantage of it.

All policy is a matter of gains and losses, upsides and downsides.