The Democratic Party is that amazing thing, out of power for six years and yet exhausted. They're pale, tired, and unready. Too bad, since it's their job to be an alternative, not an embarrassment.

Abortion is either OK or it's not.

Most people aren't appreciated enough, and the bravest things we do in our lives are usually known only to ourselves. No one throws ticker tape on the man who chose to be faithful to his wife, on the lawyer who didn't take the drug money.

There should be a name for this, for the process whereby one knows one is being yanked and concedes it has been done successfully - that one is grateful to have been spun. In the theater, it is called the willing suspension of disbelief. That's what allows the play to make an impact on the audience: they have to be able to make believe that what's happening on the stage is really happening. Maybe to a degree it is a requirement for all political participation, all effective political communication, too.

When you forget yourself and your fear, when you get beyond self-consciousness because your mind is thinking about what you are trying to communicate, you become a better communicator

In a president, character is everything. A president doesn't have to be brilliant... He doesn't have to be clever; you can hire clever... You can hire pragmatic, and you can buy and bring in policy wonks. But you cant buy courage and decency, you cant rent a strong moral sense. A president must bring those things with him. He needs to have, in that much maligned word, but a good one nonetheless, a vision of the future he wishes to create.. But a vision is worth little if a president doesn't have the character - the courage and heart - to see it through.

George W. Bush, 43rd president of the United States, became the first incumbent president to increase his majority in both the Senate and the House and to increase his own vote (by over 3.5 million) since Franklin D. Roosevelt, political genius of the 20th century, in 1936.