The quality that defines us as Americans is the courage to respond to being hit. The courage to root out and destroy the killers. And, most importantly, the courage to hold on to our values and protect our hard-won freedoms while doing it.

In matters large and small, many people seemed concerned about churlishness, an ugliness in our relationships that appears to be increasing rather than decreasing.

It is impossible to exaggerate the wide, and widening, gulf between the American attitude on the Iraq war and the view from our friends across the Atlantic.

Those who actually hate animals to the point of being cruel to them are outcasts to the rest of us, no matter where in the world they live.

America, the temple of invention and industry, doesn't make things anymore.

We didn't defeat the Nazis by becoming Nazis.

Our actions in the Middle East over the last 15 years have already guaranteed radical Muslims quite enough ammunition to kill Americans for the next century, even if Guantanamo did not exist.