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.

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

The only argument this president needs to persuade Americans is that sacking Saddam is necessary for the security of America and the West, of civilization as we know it. All those other goals are nice, worthy even, but irrelevant to the job immediately at hand.

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.

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.

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

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.