What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition.

Our patriotic fervor was the result of the old and widespread belief in the idea of American exceptionalism, the idea that America was a new thing in history, different from other countries. Other nations had evolved one way or another, evolved from tribes from a gathering of clans, from inevitabilities of language and tradition and geography. But America was born, and born of ideas: that all men are created equal, that they have been given by God certain rights that can be taken from them by no man, and that those rights combine to create a thing called freedom.

A great speech is literature.

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.

I should say here, because some in Washington like to dream up ways to control the Internet, that we don't need to 'control' free speech, we need to control ourselves.

Cynicism is not realistic and tough. It's unrealistic and kind of cowardly because it means you don't have to try. ---in Good Housekeeping

Loyalty consists of many things, including being truthful with our friends. When you really disagree, you have to say so.