Many of Bush's defenders have praised him for keeping the country safe since Sept. 11, 2001. He deserves that praise, and I'm perfectly happy to defend most of his surveillance, interrogation and counterterrorism policies against his critics.

And on this issue of the Shia in Iraq, I think there's been a certain amount of, frankly, Terry, a kind of pop sociology in America that, you know, somehow the Shia can't get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There's almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq's always been very secular.

It's been an unusual election [2016].

Going from three TV channels to broadcast TV to cable to talk radio; obviously the online explosion has changed things.

Mitt Romney has to convince the American public that they need to do something they're not usually inclined to do - replace a sitting president with a challenger. And unlike in 1980 and 1992, when the public was persuaded to do just that, the incumbent president has not been weakened by a primary opponent.

Donald Trump beat Jeb Bush and beat Hillary Clinton. And when everyone thinks of Donald Trump that's pretty impressive.

What's more important than the media, there's this thing called ObamaCare, which was President Obama's signature domestic achievement. It won Republicans the House in 2014 - 2010. It won Republicans the Senate in 2014.