In lieu of those checks and balances central to our legal system, non-citizens face an executive that is now investigator, prosecutor, judge, jury and jailer or executioner. In an Orwellian twist, Bush's order calls this Soviet-style abomination 'a full and fair trial.'

When your government, employer, landlord, merchant, banker and local sports team gang up to picture, digitize and permanently record your every activity, you are placed under unprecedented control.

I welcome new words, or old words used in new ways, provided the result is more precision, added color or greater expressiveness.

Previously known for its six syllables of sweetness and light, reconciliation has become the political fighting word of the year.

A dependent clause is like a dependent child: incapable of standing on its own but able to cause a lot of trouble.

You don't overturn a previous court's decisions lightly and I think most Americans are somewhere in the middle on abortion and there's not going to be a revolution here at all.

Writers who used to show off their erudition no longer sing in the bare ruined choir of the media.