Cast aside any column about two subjects. It means the pundit chickened out on the hard decision about what to write about that day.

Create your own constituency of the infuriated.

One difference between French appeasement and American appeasement is that France pays ransom in cash and gets its hostages back while the United States pays ransom in arms and gets additional hostages taken.

English is a stretch language; one size fits all.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home, when he was British Foreign Secretary, said he received the following telegram from an irate citizen: "To hell with you. Offensive letter follows."

The wonderful thing about being a New York Times columnist is that it's like a Supreme Court appointment - they're stuck with you for a long time.

I think we have a need to know what we do not need to know.