A runner's stride is not perfectly efficient.

Time is valuable; people are busy.

On a normal day, we value heroism because it is uncommon. On Sept. 11, we valued heroism because it was everywhere.

Some Christians worried about a faith that was so embracing as to be meaningless, that exalted not the Almighty so much as the American way of life. When civil religion bleached the challenge from faith and left behind a watery patriotism, there was room for concern.

If you want to humble an empire it makes sense to maim its cathedrals. They are symbols of its faith, and when they crumple and burn, it tells us we are not so powerful and we can't be safe. The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, planted at the base of Manhattan island with the Statue of Liberty as their sentry, and the Pentagon, a squat, concrete fort on the banks of the Potomac, are the sanctuaries of money and power that our enemies may imagine define us. But that assumes our faith rests on what we can buy and build, and that has never been America's true God.

Americas presidents tend to die young. Maybe it is in the nature of the men who reach such heights, or of the job once they attain it.

Dwight Eisenhower was candid in private, but he was circumspect in public.