Jacob Weisberg

Paternalism is the method of government activism most amenable to an impoverished public sector.

Essential to the self-image of conservatives is the notion that they are enemies of an established orthodoxy, insurgents against the dogmatic political correctness that predominates on the Left.

Members of Congress are less beasts of accumulating burden than computational machines designed to win re-election. Their sense of their own political interests is acute.

Unlike the Japanese internment, water-boarding was ordered and served up in secret. But it, too, was America's policy, not just Dick Cheney's. Congress was informed about what was happening and raised no objection. The public knew, too.

Not applying a religious test for public office means that people of all faiths are allowed to run - not that views about God, creation, and the moral order are inadmissible for political debate.

Writing that's native to the web is different in ways that are crucial but subtle enough that you can miss them if you conceive of your audience as reading a printed product.

To Trump, being a billionaire means plating everything in gold and slapping his name everywhere in huge block letters. It means that he gets to say whatever pops into his head and never has to say he is sorry.

If you want to go around saying that giving women the vote wrecked the country and still be taken seriously, it helps to be handing out $100 bills.

Seeing the rich and famous screw up makes us feel superior, or at least not quite so inferior.

Sexual signals can be received without being consciously sent.

Book collectors are thrill-seekers. It is a vegetarian hunt to be sure, without much exertion or risk, but the endorphin rush of the chase and the adrenaline high of the capture are much the same with first editions as I imagine they must be in the pursuit of 10-point stags, largemouth bass, or 20-foot waves at Maverick's.

Without medical records that he hasn't released, we can't know whether Gingrich may have inherited his mother's manic depression. Nevertheless, one observes in the former House Speaker certain symptoms - bouts of grandiosity, megalomania, irritability, racing thoughts, spending sprees - that go beyond the ordinary politician's normal narcissism.