I still would say generally that more people have access [to] and take advantage of more diversity of opinion than was once .

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.

My sense from talking to college students is that you have a healthier sense of the diversity of opinions or arguments or analysis about issues. In our day it was just sort of, "Well gee, this is what the news says so that's the way it is." It didn't really get challenged that much.

If Donald Trump behaves well, personally, and morally - I agree with Van [Jones] on this - if he distances - if he disassociates himself from forces that he unfortunately coddled and even fostered a little in this campaign, if he is responsible about the way in which he goes about his policy, initiatives on immigration and ObamaCare, trade and other areas, he has a huge opportunity, because the truth is that a lot of this stuff isn't that - there is a lot that can be done.

I'm happy to have interns at The Weekly Standard and happy to have readers of The Weekly Standard, but if you all tell me that you were busy reading Plato and [Lev] Tolstoy and playing violin in the orchestra, I'd say that was great. I wouldn't tell you to take time out from that to get involved in political journalism.

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.

Lest conservatives be too proud, it's worth recalling that conservatism's rise was decisively enabled by liberalism's weakness.