Mr. Washington said, "Government is like fire - an uncertain servant and a fearful master," but he missed the essence. At its core, governance boils down to two questions: "Who says?" and "Who pays?"

Virtually everyone who is anyone in American politics and media has roundly condemned any thought that Iran's President Ahmadinejad should be allowed to desecrate Ground Zero with his noisome presence. They are making a mistake.

There aren't any really poor people in America.

This year's episode of Civility Strikes Back relates to the baggy-pants half-moon.

If we're going to talk about "nation building," it would be extremely helpful to define the word "nation."

A great deal of the disunity between Bin Laden and America is based on differing perceptions of how men and women ought to get along. It's difficult to reconcile his view of women with American customs.

Why are we allowing an Islamic public school, teaching intifada, in New York City? Don't we already have enough terrorists?

If we can't decide between the bird lovers and the cat lovers without a jury trial, how are we going to decide what to do about "honor killing," "female circumcision," and other facets of "diversity"?

Is American citizenship of such little concern that we don't mind it being awarded as the result of a crime?

Mr. Cho's victims' families shouldn't be suing Virginia Tech; all it would accomplish is to enrich greedly lawyers while doing nothing useful.