The latter 1940s and early '50s were a time of tense, explosive conflict, in the world at large and in the politics of our nation.

If inequalities of taxable wealth backing up a government service are construed as denying equality before the law, then there is no solution but to have every government service whatever financed out of Washington.

As is well known, 'McCarthyism' was an alleged focus of political evil in the 1950s: Accusations of Communist taint, without factual basis; bogus lists of supposed Communists who never existed; failure in the end to produce even one provable Communist or Soviet agent, despite his myriad charges of subversion.

It is fast becoming an article of political faith that financing America's public schools by way of the local property tax is a shame and a civic scandal.

The case for democracy is that voters in the aggregate will make better decisions than a lone monarch or dictator would.

I've always thought Anne-Marie Slaughter would make a fantastic United States Senator or something. She's a real intellectual, but she's got enormous communicative skills and she's got government experience. The thing that drives me slightly crazy is the way we think about intellectuals as wooly, hopeless, arrogant, self-deceived, incapable.

If one of my boys was asking me if they should go into politics, I'd say there's only one reason to go into public life and that's to help people.

If you believe in democracy, the overreach of leaders is a good reminder that vigorous public debate and time-consuming due process are not only more fair and more just, but that over the long term they usually produce better government, too.