Trump lies when confronted with the truth, since any crack in his narcissism might spread like an Ebola of the soul, and he would deflate like one of Macy's balloons on the Friday after Thanksgiving.Collection: Thanksgiving
If every senator looks into the mirror and sees a future president, then every president looks into that same mirror and sees himself on Mount Rushmore.Collection: Future
We are a segmented society, living in our individual bubbles.Collection: Society
I agree that sometimes Michelle Obama can come across as angry - and anger is discomforting. We venerate that empty word, closure, wanting to seal off the pain of the past and refusing it admittance to the chirpy present. This, of course, is nonsense.Collection: Anger
Most men, I think, wonder about their courage. How would they act in combat? Under torture?
As a presidential candidate, Trump seems heaven-sent just to make fools out of Republicans.
Churchill had a marvelous way with words, and greatness accompanied him like a shadow, but in certain ways, he was a 19th-century man wandering, confounded, in the 20th.
Say what you will about Donald Trump, he cares. He cares about things I don't, and he has some awful ideas, and he is an amoral man in so many ways. But, in contrast to Obama, his emotions are no mystery.
Since the end of World War II, American leadership has been essential to maintain world peace. Whether we liked it or not, we were the world's policeman. There was no other cop on the beat. Now, that leadership is gone. So, increasingly, will be peace.
Being an American is life-threatening. For various reasons, men and women here don't live as long as men and women in about two dozen other countries, including the ones we defeated in World War II - Japan, Germany and Italy.
Republicans and others who are in anguish over the possibility of socialized medicine ought to have to explain their ideology to a mother with a sick newborn. They ought to have to explain how this nation can debate health care and not mention how abysmal ours is.
Our country undergoes periodic episodes of extreme intolerance and fear of foreigners, refugees in particular. Not only were people of Japanese descent placed in internment camps during World War II, but so were some Italians and Germans.
Lots of men have failed as presidents, as Trump surely will, but few fail so dismally as role models. He's a boy's idea of a man. He's a man's idea of a boy.
Myths have a certain staying power because, really, they are aspirational - not always who we are, but always who we want to be. We see ourselves as good and generous. We believe we are a virtuous nation.
As a kid, I was a paperboy, and the walls of the place where we picked up our papers were plastered with pictures of former paperboys - some sports figures, some presidents, some military officers.
Raising money, like sausage-making, ain't pretty to see, and it would be just criminally naive to rely on the big hearts of big donors.
There is precious little that's charitable about the world of charity.
I reveled in political science and history of all kinds, and I felt for a long time that I had discovered all the secrets of life in psychology, although its Freudian variety left me cold. The id never made much sense to me.
I came of age when jobs were plentiful and college not exorbitantly expensive. I graduated with debt, but it was manageable, and I set off to do something I loved - journalism.
I never went to college to make money.
Hillary Clinton looms over the Democratic Party like Evita from her balcony.
The term 'disrupter' has become an accolade, like first-responder or something.
The more Scott Walker campaigns, the more he proves he is not intellectually fit for the office he's seeking. He asserts innocent ignorance on matters he should by now know something about - a way of masking his apparent bigotry.
Israel may be beloved, but for American security, it is not essential.
In power politics, it's usually not enough to be liked. A nation has to be considered essential.
The fact is that the United States does not need Israel. Our special relationship was not forged, as it was with Great Britain, in two world wars, not to mention a common language and, in significant respects, culture. It is based on warmth, emotion, shared values - and, not to be dismissed, a potent domestic lobby.
Iran may or may not be the existential threat to Israel that Netanyahu insists it is. But a lessening of U.S. support for Israel certainly would be. With an indifferent America, Israel would become a lonely, frightening place.
The ability and willingness to keep two opposing views in mind at the same time are hallmarks of adulthood.
We grow up to respect the gray. Black or white, one or the other, is childish. It represents the worldview of someone who does not know the world.
I have come to the conclusion that Ben Carson is a bit nuts. I say that not because I disagree with him politically, but because he doesn't seem to know what the truth is.
I served in the Army. I worked at blue-collar jobs. I washed dishes and bused tables.
My father was raised in an orphanage, and my mother was an immigrant from Poland whose first childhood memory was of hunger. Somehow, despite all of that, I am called a member of the 'elite.' If so, I damned well earned it.
Among the things I know is that Trump voters were played for suckers.
I have written about cultural dislocation, and I understand the corrosive effect of diminished expectations.
A presidential candidate needs a slogan.
Sometimes I think that Rush Limbaugh is the dumbest man in America. This happens whenever I take him at face value and forget that he is basically an entertainer with contempt for his audience. He will tell them anything.
It takes a willful disregard of history to appreciate how white Southerners could look at the Confederate battle flag and see states' rights or a way of life or a tradition - and not one human being whipping another, which was a common occurrence.
I am glad to see the Confederate battle flag gone from a place of honor at the South Carolina state capitol.
Opposition to social change is but one pillar of contemporary Republicanism.
Large government is inevitably inefficient, but so, too, is large private enterprise.
Much worse than the unavoidable inefficiencies of large government is the failure to fund the government we need.
Private enterprise cannot rebuild the nation's infrastructure or keep our research institutions vibrant. Government must do what only it can do.
The grieving are surely owed our empathy, but capital punishment can neither right a wrong nor prevent another from happening.
Every rippling muscle is a book not read, a movie not seen, or a conversation not held.
Trump is unloved in his own house. A figure of ridicule, a theatrical creation, he is almost sympathetic. He was told by the greedy and the outright stupid that he would make a swell president. The Liar's Paradox has spun out of control, with liars lying to a liar who believed the lie. What would that be called? Fox News, I think.
Conservatives watch Fox News and read 'Breitbart.' Liberals watch MSNBC and read 'HuffPost.' When we agree, it's the truth; when we differ, it's fake news.
Heroism is a matter of choice.
The concept of cultural appropriation is nothing less than an intellectual fence: Keep out.
Trump was always a poster boy of the selfish, egomaniacal, ignorant, bragging, cruel rich kid, whose mirror was the sleazy pages of Rupert Murdoch's 'New York Post.' Trump's oxygen was the leaked item, without which he would die the suffocating death of being shown to a bad table.
I value my education, but I cannot put a value on it. I know it has been worth some money to me - I don't think 'The Post' would have hired me if I had lacked a degree - but I probably could have earned about the same if I had stayed in the insurance business, where I worked while going to college at night.