If an armed nation were a polite nation, America would be paradise. We have more than 200 million guns in private owernship here. But our manners are not getting better.

If an armed nation were a polite nation, America would be paradise. We have more than 200 million guns in private owernship here. But our manners are not getting better.

Most of us think of government as them. Yet government isn't Them: It's us.

The charm of Ronald Reagan is not just that he kept telling us screwy things, it was that he believed them all. No wonder we trusted him, he never lied to us. ... His stubbornness, even defiance, in the face of facts ('stupid things,' he once called them in a memorable slip) was nothing short of splendid. ... This is the man who proved that ignorance is no handicap to the presidency.

I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag.

It's hard to argue against cynics - they always sound smarter than optimists because they have so much evidence on their side.

Politics is not a picture on a wall or a television sitcom that you can decide you don't much care for.