People used to complain in the 50s and 60s and even in the 70s when I was in school, studying political science, that "if only we could have two political parties that presented a choice, but there were all these liberal Republicans and there were all these southern Democrats who are conservative so people just don't have a clear choice."

If President [Barack] Obama - President [Donald] Trump shows up with a, you know, cleaver and just says, I can get rid of all these regulations, I can get rid of ObamaCare, no problem at all, then that would be a mistake.

The most devastating indictment of the president's proposal is that it threatens to destroy virtually everything about American health care that's worth preserving. Under the plan's layers of regulation and oversight, even seeing a doctor whenever you like will be no easy matter: access to physicians will be carefully regulated by gatekeepers; referrals to specialists will be strongly discouraged; second opinions will be almost unheard of; and the availability of new drugs will be limited.

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.

I think reading intelligent expressions of different points of view is a good thing, and there is a way in which being in academia in a classroom at the University probably gives you, can give you an academic view of things, and reading actual real time debates about what should we do in Syria or the Buffett rule, budget issues...gives you a kind of sense that's hard to get in a classroom.

Shouldn't Democrats insist that Sen. Durbin step down as their whip, the number two man in their leadership?

All defense secretaries in wartime have, needless to say, made misjudgments.