Obama, like Carter, is reacting to warning signs by seeking to split the difference between dispirited Democrats and increasingly radicalized Republicans.

But particularly when the media profess to strive toward objectivity, gatekeepers play a crucial role in helping people navigate the news to make educated political decisions.

Fox News is nothing if not impressive. No matter how harsh the criticism it endures, the network somehow always manages to prove itself even worse than we had previously imagined.

I am deeply devoted to the 27,000 songs I can take anywhere on my iPod Classic as well as the exquisitely engineered MacBook Air on which I typed this column.

The Economist is undoubtedly the smartest weekly newsmagazine in the English language. I always look forward to its quirky year-end double issue.

Warren Buffett pays taxes on a smaller percentage of his billions in income than his cleaning lady.

Americans get mad as hell with reasonable frequency but quickly return to their families and sitcoms.

The myth of the liberal media empowers conservatives to control debate in the United States to the point where liberals cannot even hope for a fair shake anymore.

Over one in five American children is living in poverty, and the number is rising.

Face it, the system is rigged, and it's rigged against us.

Mistakes, after all, are endemic to foreign and military policy given the unpredictability of events and the difficulty of securing reliable information in a place like Iraq.

Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible. [on hearing a famous violinist]

Possession and loving are concepts that damn each other.

The disciplined soul hardly needs "Yoga" to control the body it temporarily resides in.

I'll take thy word for faith not ask thine oath Who shuns not to break one will sure crack both.

Writers are doubters, compulsives, self-flagellants. The torture only stops for brief moments.

It is very doubtful whether man is enough of a political animal to produce a good, sensible, serious and efficient constitution. All the evidence is against it.

If something can be done 80% as well by someone else, delegate!

You can't defer if you're the person who's in the leadership position.

Believe that others are better than you in the debths of their soul, although outwardly you may appear better than they.

I'm trying not to delve into my world of abstraction and self-indulgence. But I haven't. When I sit down and I try not to [be abstract], it comes out really forced and awkward.