I like [John Cardinal O'Connor] a lot. He - I started a - to know him - when I asked William Shawn at The New Yorker, `Sh - can I do a profile of Cardinal O'Connor?' He said, `All right. Find out what he's like.' So I went to his office, and I heard somebody - and it turned out to be O'Connor - yelling outside, and I've never heard him since raise his voice.

I guess you'd say, including the - what I just spoke about, the learning that liberalism isn't quite as liberal as it pretends to be.

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

We need to keep trying to rescue the Constitution from the President.

Those who created this country chose freedom. With all of its dangers. And do you know the riskiest part of that choice they made? They actually believed that we could be trusted to make up our own minds in the whirl of differing ideas. That we could be trusted to remain free, even when there were very, very seductive voices - taking advantage of our freedom of speech - who were trying to turn this country into the kind of place where the government could tell you what you can and cannot do.

Abortion happens because of economic circumstances.

I write a column for The Village Voice, which I've done since time immemorial, and occasionally - and books. And I occasionally write minor notes for record albums and occasional articles.