If our presidents, or potential presidents, don't know this or don't articulate [an America ideal], that's a blown opportunity. The president can teach as well as lead.

A surprise to others, but not to me, since I've watched this closely for eight years now, is how George W. Bush has internalized the founders' belief that all human beings are endowed by their Creator with a certain inherent yearning for freedom. In turn, Bush has applied this to his vision for the Middle East, believing that a democratic transformation in that region is possible, given that inherent desire for liberty within all hearts, including the hearts of Arab Muslims. People disagree with that, which is fine, but that's the Bush vision.

Reagan thought that school prayer was important because it was crucial to begin each day reminding students that their inalienable rights came to them from their Creator and not from government bureaucrats.

Many of these failures can be laid at the feet of the awful state of American higher education, and especially the way in which our secular universities have divorced their instruction from timeless truths like faith and freedom. Many of the professors at these places plainly don't respect the founders and, in particular, the religious foundation of the founders.

I was disappointed in how [Bill] Clinton, like [Jimmy] Carter, used the founders to argue for huge expansions in federal power, clearly beyond what the founders could have ever conceived.

Learning is a good thing, but unless it's tempered by faith and a love of freedom, it can be very dangerous indeed.

As has been reported, and is unmistakably evident to all but the most naïve, federal employees have been ordered to exploit this crisis, to make the government shutdown as uncomfortable as they can. The White House is actively soliciting complaints from the general public on 'how the government shutdown has affected you.' These testimonies are tools sought for the propaganda kit; the better to agitate with.