In terms of the Patriot Act, and all the other things he has pledged he would do, such as transparency in government,[Barack] Obama has reneged on his promises.

This sounds corny, but I once told a kid when I was in a the library conference, the best - not the best, what I really hope for is that someday 20, 30 years from now, some kid, 12-year-old, 15-year-old, in Des Moines will be going through the stacks, if they have stacks anymore - they probably won't - and find a book of mine and get something from it.

[Barack Obama to be] much worse [than George W. Bush].

There wasn't much said, but I was thinking, perhaps unkindly - not unkindly,but on - inaccurately of Theodore Dreiser's "Carrie," when the main character in "Carrie" has been brought down by Carrie and his - he - dress is disheveled and all that sort of thing. And that's the last I ever saw of [Will Shawn].

I wrote the column. I - you know, - the column simply said that [Clay] Felker is destroying this paper. And I heard that he was about ready to fire me, but two other people on The Voice interceded and, fortunately, he had a very short attention span, so I wasn't fired.

The irony is that [Barack] Obama was a law professor at the University of Chicago. He would, most of all, know that what he is doing weakens the Constitution.

I met [my wife Margot] on Fire Island when I had a house there many years ago.