Iraq's always been very secular.

In any case, open-seat presidential elections like 2008 just are different in character from incumbent reelects, and I think that's the most important thing about this election - is that once there's an incumbent running for reelection, most of the debate is about, "Has he [Barack Obama] done a good job?" Most of the judgment is, "Do you want to keep him or do you want to replace him?" Now, the opponent has to also be acceptable and has to make his own case.

Look, at actual Republican and conservative think-tank proposals to replace ObamaCare all have the pre-existing condition provision in, done somewhat differently from [Barack] President Obama's.

I think the whole dynamic is different. Whereas in [Barack] Obama's case, even though there was no incumbent, he was able to run against eight years of Bush-Cheney and a Republican Congress, and everyone was tired of everything. He was able to benefit from that.

I think it's fine that there are five million people who are watching [politics on TV], and obviously I'm happy they are since they're on the air, and there are a couple hundred thousand people reading The Weekly Standard online, and that's great too, but most Americans aren't engaged that intensely, and are much less partisan.

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.

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