President Obama's biggest advocates believe that Americans are ready to embrace his vision for the United States: a less muscular America on the world stage, an America with a more controlling executive branch and less conflict in the legislative branch, an America in which the government takes care of us, be we Pajama Boys or Julias.

After the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the Obama administration steadfastly refused to say which element of the U.S. military had participated in the assault. Until Vice President Joe Biden decided to talk about it on national television, that is.

What sort of job can you hold in America in which it is safe to hold the personal conviction that same-sex marriage is wrong? The answer: there is no such job. Except Democratic presidential candidate in 2008. Then you're fine.

When Americans are faced with the prospect that they can never earn their way to wealth, they have two choices: to rebel against the system, or to settle into depressed complacency.

The Franco-German tandem at the core of post-war European integration has become lopsided. Relations between Berlin and Paris are unusually poor, with some French politicians decrying the 'selfish intransigence' in the euro crisis of Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel.

Western ghosts are evil, but Korean ghosts are about making peace. That is part of our Korean psyche.

To do what we are doing in this budget to our children, cutting their health care funds, decreasing opportunity, simply so we can pay for tax cuts and a war in Iraq is beyond belief, and we need to reverse it.

There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.