Washington is agonizingly slow at learning from its mistakes. Especially in the Middle East.

As I'm learning, Republicans seem to only care about deficits when a Democrat is in the White House.

The United States has the best intelligence-gathering operation in the world. We should provide a greater level of training and assistance to the E.U. to help them develop a more robust counter-terrorism platform.

From the outside, Qatar and U.A.E. likely look like twins - small, oil-rich Sunni monarchies that are largely friendly to the U.S. But their philosophies on the region are very different - Qatar does not fear Islamism as does the U.A.E.

But as important as the job to be done by government in the neighborhoods, the people must also be involved.

What other nations call religious toleration, we call religious rights. They are not exercised in virtue of governmental indulgence, but as rights, of which government cannot deprive any portion of citizens, however small.

Rove, of course, is an exceptionally good, exceptionally skillful campaign guy, and Bush himself is really gifted at the political end of politics. But he's always been, as he says, misunderestimated.

When consumers do not take full advantage of efficiency gains, it is because they are weighing other factors that influence their decision making. When the federal government arbitrarily places one of those factors over others, it makes consumers worse off.