America is an outlier in the world of democracies when it comes to the structure and conduct of elections.

Presidents are elected not by direct popular vote but by 538 members of the Electoral College.

Science never makes an advance until philosophy authorizes it to do so.

All of this suggests that while citizens became more comfortable with President Bush after September 11 and thought him to have the requisite leadership skills, they continue to harbor doubts about his priorities, loyalties, interests, and policies.

Speech is civilization itself. The word, even the most contradictions word, preserves contact - it is silence which isolates.

First, his job approval ratings have been trending down for many months, a trend that has accelerated in recent weeks as the war on terrorism has been supplanted in the public's mind by corporate scandals, stock market declines, and a growing sense of economic insecurity.

The writer's joy is the thought that can become emotion, the emotion that can wholly become a thought.