In many ways, Martin Luther King was a good man - certainly a highly intelligent man. Well read, well spoken, influential well beyond his life. But equal to all the Presidents of the nation?

Who needs a "first black president" who is actually white when you can have a "first black president" who really is black?

We don't disparage the motives of politicians, they have the same motives we do. We don't distrust the motives of bureaucrats, we trust them all too well.

Why can't we Americans buy cheap cars? The cheapest car in the US costs about $20,000, about 8 times the cost of Tata's offering.

Bush-bashers hate to admit it, but a smaller percentage of active-duty military personnel died during both Bush administrations than during the Reagan and Carter administrations.

The left-wing blogsphere claim that Hillary's people stole the election from Obama. The evidence, if true, is staggering.

The conservatives have rightly complained about the fiasco that was the CNN/YouTube debate, to say nothing of Chris Matthews' execrable moderating. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and it doesn't fit any better on that side.

The recent, less-than-informed coverage of the death of Benazir Bhutto reminds us of Neville Chamberlain's infamous comment about Czechsolovakia as " a faraway country about which we know nothing."

Of course Mr. Musharraf doesn't want to share power. Who does? Does The Times want to share power and influence with the LA Times or with the Washington Post? Of course not.

Once again, lawbreakers get a nice fat Christmas present, while the longsuffering voters get "nothing but hooks and some wire."