If you want to make the government take a religious side, then make the case, it should be Christian republic.

The whole straight talk thing, which John McCain kind of turned into a slogan at one point in one of his presidential campaigns, what that is, is a symptom of somebody who has no time for messing around. Because he`s trying to get stuff done constantly.

If something is being done on a secret basis in national security, that's a great reason for elected officials to not talk about it. And that's a great way to shirk accountability for it with the public.

The folks celebrating Jim Bunning are seeing him as an anti-government, anti-spending activist. But to embrace Jim Bunning is to embrace a strange record, if you really are a libertarian, if you really are a deficit hawk, if you really care about spending and responsibility.

It's not just the small-potatoes post-9/11 Homeland spending that feels a little off mission. It's the big-ticket stuff too.

I'm in favor of outing when people have demonized or scapegoated gay people for their own public gain. I don't think just being a Republican is reason enough.

When Vladimir Putin runs up against American power and American criticism and American leadership that reminds him of what Russia isn`t, when he runs up against people who he worries are funding his dissidents or supporting protests against him, when he runs up against criticism of the way he runs his own country, what he`s running up against is the State Department.