I think people ultimately reveal themselves to everybody. I think that's the case with Sarah Palin's conduct, particularly after the Tucson shooting, I think she's sort of digging herself into a hole. I hope - I really hope.
I'm part of the tribe who have said goodbye to one parent and are feeling a sense of responsibility for the one who remains - in my case, my mother. How do I make her time smoother, happier? How do I try to ease her, a widow, away from the dark well of grief without dishonoring the necessity of that grief?
The memories stayed with him for so long, and stayed vivid. And it didn't matter to me that he'd already repeated that before. I could hear it forever.
My father's body lies in a stone tomb high on a hill. People walk by, pause, think their own thoughts about him and move on, back to their own lives. I can never move on. He is everywhere.
Christopher Reeve understood that... everything begins with hope. His vision of walking again, his belief that he would be able to in his lifetime, towered over his broken body.
My father would never have said about any of his children you shouldn't express your opinions. But it's the way in which you express them. And for me to do - to speak at demonstrations and be as strident as I was now I see wasn't right. And it - there was a better way to do it. I could have written articles.
I don't think it's an accident who our parents are; I believe we choose them. So maybe I chose my parents in order to effect change.
Decades later I would look into my father's eyes and try to reach past the murkiness of Alzheimer's with my words, my apology, hoping that in his heart he heard me and understood.
Puppies, like all babies, grow up fast. Before long, Gracie was no longer barking at her reflection, instead offering a blase look that seemed to say, 'I know what that is now. I know it's not another dog.'
I think people ultimately reveal themselves to everybody. I think that's the case with Sarah Palin's conduct, particularly after the Tucson shooting, I think she's sort of digging herself into a hole. I hope - I really hope.
When my father, Ronald Reagan, was running for president in 1980, my mother, Nancy, traveled with him on the campaign trail, but she did not give speeches or even many interviews. She never stood in front of a group of reporters and expounded on her views and opinions.
I think we can work through a lot of political and international problems, but what really frightens me is what's happening environmentally.
I felt that the best I could do for my father, and the best I could do for myself, and my mother and my family was to stay open to the experience, and learn whatever I could at every step of the way as it was going on.
September 11 either made me love this country or it made me realize how much I already did. I think it's the latter. Seeing Fahrenheit 9/11 made me think deeply about love of country - how it molds us, drives and emboldens us and how it can sometimes make us so angry, we want to shout out to the world: 'No, this is wrong.'
I certainly support anyone's prerogative to hire or not hire whomever they choose, and I definitely don't want to work for someone who doesn't want me.
I really just sat down to write. I mean, I did what most writers do when something happens that's overwhelming, fascinating, moving, all of that.
Callista Gingrich has, I suspect, given Newt's advisers a giant headache. She's a constant presence at her husband's side - and a constant reminder of his acknowledged infidelity. Newt cheated on his second wife with Callista, a woman 23 years his junior.