In England, you have what I would call government-imposed euthanasia

That is what is happening with the Tea Parties. I wrote a column called "The Second American Revolution" about the fact that people are acting for themselves as it happened with the Sons of Liberty which spread throughout the colonies. That was a very important awakening in this country.

[People] felt good even though they didn't really know much about [Barack Obama] and may have had some doubts.

Carl Armstrong was one of those people in the anti-war years who had been so convinced of the righteousness of their cause that he and some friends decided they would blow up a building at the University of Wisconsin, in which they said research was being done to help the war against the Vietnamese. What they blew up at three or four in the morning was a young scientist, who was married and had a couple of kids, who wasn't working on war stuff at all. And he was killed.

I went to school at a place that also shaped my life, Boston Latin School.

At least they [people] showed the world we could elect a black president.

We disagree heavily on abortion [with Margot Hentoff].