Eisenhower was a pretty peace-oriented president. Truman was a pretty hawkish. I would argue, if we had more time, I would argue Truman had a lot to do with getting the Cold War going.

What passes for investigative journalism is finding somebody with their pants down - literally or otherwise.

The issue I highlight in the book is welfare reform.

We've had the trivialization of our politics going on ever since we had electronic media.

I teach at USC, and it's obvious to anyone who teaches college students that they don't cover much modern history and certainly not the modern presidency.

Much of what candidates have to do is raise money and appeal to constituencies or interest groups that can provide that money.

Alternative media is no longer really alternative, and we're no longer that dependant upon newspapers, like the Los Angeles Times, for our information.

It had run as a column - I had worked at the paper since 1976, but the column had been running for 13 years, and I think it was a strong column, criticizing the war when the paper was supporting it.

When Howard Dean started saying some honest things, they hung him.

If the war on terror is endless, you could forget about democracy.

Today anyone on the Internet can find out more about what you read, think, and earn than the secret police of Stalin or Hitler could have learned.

Reading is a pleasurable paradise.

...I did what most kids do when their world feels destroyed. I tried to care less about what remained...It was untrue, of course.

I can't imagine a life without a story.

God is to be worshipped as the one beloved, dearer than everything in this and next life.

The curious are always in some danger. If you are curious you might never come home.

Everything's gonna be alright.

No man ever quite believes in any other man.

The government that governs best, governs best!

My best sources are my travels and my collection of National Geographic.

Never be so brief as to become obscure.