It's very difficult, historically, to define what an elite is. But whatever it is, people are very angry at that idea, I think, not so much because of wealth or privilege as much as attitude that the populous masses, if I could use that overused term, feel that a particular government or cultural group is not subject to the ramifications of their own ideology.

A Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, John Edwards, Howard Dean, George Soros, or Al Gore looks - no, acts - like he either came out of a hairstylist's salon or got off a Gulfstream.

The easily ridiculed, so-so status quo often hides Herculean efforts by those whom we take for granted, and who, working in the shadows, guarantee civilization instead of chaos.

Entertainers wrongly assume that their fame, money, and influence arise from broad knowledge rather than natural talent, looks, or mastery of a narrow skill.

I think the Democrat Party is taking its cue from the media. When the media has a narrative, whether it's the use of profanity, the Democratic Party follows it.

I wish I could attribute the absence of any conventional Arab offensive in the last 20 years to a change of political climate or a willingness to abide by past accords. But unfortunately it is more likely that the Egyptians or Syrians concluded that the next time their tanks headed to Tel Aviv, there was nothing stopping the counterassaults from ending up in downtown Cairo or Damascus.

Did either the nonexistent or the measured response after a series of attacks on Americans the past decade - in Lebanon, Africa, Saudi Arabia, New York, and Yemen - suggest to our terrorist enemies that it was wrong and unwise to kill reasonable and affable people, or did the easy killing imply that self-absorbed and pampered Lotus-eaters would not much care who or how many were butchered as long as it was within reasonable numbers and spread out over time?