Economic growth is necessary to keep the promise - enormously important to individual Americans - that each generation will have the opportunity to become more prosperous than the preceding one, the popular term for which is 'the American dream.

Football is controlled violence, but it is violence, which people have loved to watch since the gladiatorial contests in ancient Rome.

The war on terror, I believe, will be waged by effective intelligence and police work and cruise missiles.

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

Certainly, protecting oppressed people, stopping ethnic conflict and promoting responsible governance are worthy goals. But none is as important for American security and prosperity as keeping the peace in the Middle East, Europe and East Asia.

People do not change when you tell them they should; they change when they tell themselves they must.

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.