Freedom cannot exist alone.

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

The American founding is not just about a group of people, a group of men. It is about an ideal: Both a vision and understanding of the very essence of democracy, constitutional government, a representative republic, and the remarkably powerful concept of being endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights.

I was a child or didn't live through those presidents prior to [Ronald] Reagan, and thus didn't realize how little attention they had paid to the founders.

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.

[Ronald Reagan] called the image of [George] Washington praying on his knees in Valley Forge "the most sublime image in American history."