No one, and the liberal cognoscenti least of all, wants to look at why, after decades of throwing money at a rotting educational establishment and years of racial preferences black students are worse off than ever.

If what happens in Las Vegas is supposed to stay in Las Vegas, how did Harry Reid get out?

Washington honors the Platinum Rule above all: 'Do it unto others before they do it unto you'.

Greed has replaced religion as the national religion, and with greed comes envy.

Cutting corners no doubt makes the job easier for the government, but making the government's job easier is rarely a priority. Preserving the Constitution, fighting off the nibblers and chippers, even nibblers and chippers with good intentions, was once regarded by conservatives as the first duty of the citizen. It still is.

Military metaphors are rarely exact, but sending Republicans against Democrats when the issue hangs in the balance is nearly always as futile as sending George B. McClellan against Robert E. Lee, the Italians against Marshal Montgomery's desert rats or an Arab armored division against an Israeli rifle company. The copy desk can write the headline before the battle begins and take the rest of the night off.

Thomas Jefferson despised newspapers, with considerable justification. They printed libels and slanders about him that persist to the present day. Yet he famously said that if he had to choose between government without newspapers and newspapers without government, he would cheerfully choose to live in a land with newspapers (even not very good ones) and no government.