Obama and the Democrats were so critical of what Bush did, the interrogations, the secret prisons, Guantanamo and all of that, and even the war on terror. Obama won't use the word. He's made war on the war on terror.

Clashes of values and the struggle for primacy constitute a constant in human history that accounts for that other constant - conflict and war.

Longevity, for a columnist, is a simple proposition: Once you start, you don't stop. You do it until you die or can no longer put a sentence together. It has always been my intention to die at my desk, although my most cherished ambition is to outlive the estate tax.

When a party is in opposition, it opposes. That's its job. But when it comes to power, it must govern. Easy rhetoric is over, the press of reality becomes irresistible. By necessity, it adopts some of the policies it had once denounced. And a new national consensus is born.

In the Cold War, a lot of Soviet actions could be explained as extensions of Czarist imperial ambitions, but that didn't stop us from studying Marxism in theory and Communism in practice to better understand that adversary.

We didn't start this war - the right wing did. We're tired of seeing good-paying jobs shipped overseas. This fight is about the economy, it's about jobs and it's about rebuilding America.

Usually, all I want is peace and quiet when I'm driving home.

I don't think a lot of the news outlets examine the effect of war on a family.