The IRS targeting certain groups for harassment because of their politics would be unfair. If we found out the NSA was keeping special tabs on everyone who worshiped at a mosque or took a Bible trip through the Middle East, you'd have an uprising.
The history of American women is about the fight for freedom, but it's less a war against oppressive men than a struggle to straighten out the perpetually mixed message about women's role that was accepted by almost everybody of both genders.
When the women's movement began, it was a middle-class phenomenon. Certainly, black women had other stuff to think about in the '60s besides a women's movement. Working-class women were slow to get into it.
I'm sort of suspicious of most economic development projects, but the ones that encourage taxpayer-funded relocation bidding wars should be declared unconstitutional.
You can hit as many revolutions as you want, but women are always going to wear uncomfortable shoes that look good.
I just really like Houston despite its craziness. There is a sense of energy and a kind of excitement, 'We're going places and God knows what'll happen next.' It's very interesting. It's very exciting.
Once you're done being president, you tend to want to defend your record more than plumb your inner feelings. I find it hard to imagine Obama going home at night and writing sensitive, introspective journal entries about his meeting with John Boehner.
When people say this isn't the America they grew up in, they're right. Nobody gets to grow old in the America they grew up in.
I used to have a sort of soft spot for Huckabee. He seemed to have a genuinely saintly streak, which caused him to defend illegal immigrants and give pardons to criminals who were perhaps a little less rehabilitated than he had imagined.
Downplaying their faults is pretty much the point of campaigns. But we do count on them living with the constant terror of public rejection.
Bin Laden wasn't all that central to the terrorist network any more, but taking him down created a kind of national catharsis. It's been a really, really long time since we had something to celebrate that didn't involve a sports team. I'd rather it had been a non-death-related occasion, but we'll take what we can get.
My only thought about Margaret Thatcher is the same one I had about Ronald Reagan. I hated a lot of what they did, but once in a while a country just needs a change.
Take Hispanic voters. They favor Democrats because they like the party's programs, from health care reform to government spending on education. It's not because the Republicans don't have a big enough Office of Hispanic Outreach.
Texas is a great place to be rich and a terrible place to be poor. It's got the highest percentage of people without health insurance in the country. If you get injured on the job, good luck getting workers' comp. And God help you if you're poor and mentally ill.
Illegal immigration can never be completely stopped, no matter how high the wall or how many patrol agents you have watching it.
Sarah Palin is an heir to the women's movement. She has not been constrained by gender. At no point in her life has she thought, 'I can't do that because I'm a woman.'
Back in the '70s when my friends in California were at Berkeley, in-state tuition was around $700 a year.
The history of American women is all about leaving home - crossing oceans and continents, or getting jobs and living on their own.