After three elections, voters finally caught on that Obama's faults were not in the stars, but in himself. They apparently tired of the usual distractions from a dismal presidential record.

The columnist like myself or people at Stanford University don't wake up in the morning and see their job outsourced. Yet we promote free markets. But we're not sensitive to what that does to other people who don't have our privilege.

Popular culture is simply a reflection of what the majority seems to want.

In history, one gathers clues like a detective, tries to present an honest account of what most likely happened, and writes a narrative according to what we know and, where we aren't absolutely sure, what might be most likely to have happened, within the generally accepted rules of evidence and sources.

I think people are beating each other up in the halls of Congress, as they did in the late 1850s.

Ancient wisdom: deal in personal trust; your word is your bond; avoid extremes; treat the money you invest for others as something sacred; don't take any more perks than you would wish others to take; don't borrow what you couldn't suddenly pay back; imagine the worse case financial scenario and expect it very may well happen; the wealthier you become the more humble you should act.

So why, after prior successes, did Obama's race/class/gender attack finally sputter out like the French at Waterloo?