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.
Trump critics such as myself have been accused of living in a bubble. On the contrary, it is Trump's supporters in the 1 percent who breathed their own fumes.
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.
Travelgate eventually faded, and the nation somehow survived - American exceptionalism at work again.
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.
We need a national service that throws us all together, the urban with the rural, the Fox News types with the MSNBC crowd. That way, Americans can get to know Americans and learn - as previous generations did - that we are all Americans.
Maybe the best example of the unmuscled hero is Humphrey Bogart in 'Casablanca.' Bogart was 15 years older than Ingrid Bergman, and it did not matter at all. He had the experience, the confidence, the internal strength that can only come with age.
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.
We fear hackers lifting our digital wallet, a public accounting of our private lives, and we wonder if the shoes that follow us around the Internet will someday, with the click of a distant mouse, look like the jackboots of old.
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.
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.
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 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.
To anyone other than an adamant social conservative, Pence is shockingly unreasonable. But he is also shockingly hypocritical.
Leaving aside handguns and hunting weapons, what's the justification for possessing an AR-15-style weapon?
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.
I long ago tired of politicians who never say anything, adhere to their talking points, and avoid all controversy.
Trump is a menace, both ignorant and chaotic. His saving grace is his incompetence.
Hillary Clinton looms over the Democratic Party like Evita from her balcony.
Hillary Clinton may have lied about her emails, but Donald Trump lies about everything.
Evil comes in through the cable and through the Internet. We look forward to the advent of driverless cars. But they can be hacked. You could be riding along, and some 14-year-old in Romania takes over your car, so you end up running the lights and losing your brakes or, worse, listening to Eminem. What's the purpose?
Much worse than the unavoidable inefficiencies of large government is the failure to fund the government we need.
George W. Bush, a charming and utterly gracious man, was a catastrophic twofer. He took the United States to war in Iraq, a wrenching debacle: more than 4,000 Americans dead, nearly 32,000 wounded, and the Middle East destabilized with Iranian influence enhanced.
Israel may be beloved, but for American security, it is not essential.
It's all right with me if Roman Polanski is freed by the Swiss authorities who have detained him at the request of the United States - if first I get a chance to bust him one in the mouth.
When I was a kid, I went door to door in my neighborhood asking for donations to the Jewish National Fund, best known then for its Israel forestation program. At the age of 11 or so, I imagined myself a regular Johnny Appleseed, responsible for vast forests.
There is only so much chaos a nation can stand.
There is precious little that's charitable about the world of charity.
Something about the Clintons sets the GOP to howling at the moon.
Trump's juvenilia stands in stark contrast to Obama's measured words.
A presidential candidate needs a slogan.
As a presidential candidate, Trump seems heaven-sent just to make fools out of Republicans.
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.
It has become increasingly difficult for states or the federal government to apply the death penalty. But why even try? Nothing is accomplished, and while the chances of making a mistake are now diminished - DNA can prove guilt as well as innocence - life in prison is a worthy substitute.
Let me tell you, seven days without Wolf Blitzer is heaven. A week outside 'The Situation Room' is downright calming. No 'breaking news!' No hype. Blitzer is a first-class journalist, and I mention him only by way of acknowledging his fame.
What's the justification for a semiautomatic weapon with a magazine of 30 rounds?
Among the things I know is that Trump voters were played for suckers.
Trump is in the White House, fulminating on Twitter, messing up foreign policy, mistaking critics for enemies, refusing to immediately and unequivocally condemn neo-Nazis, racists, and other assorted goons - and, in general, failing to provide the nation with a scintilla of moral leadership. This will last until it can't any longer.
The ultimate question is whether the name Donald Trump will be attached to an era - whether he will so change America that it will never be the same afterward.
How is it possible to defame Trump? When Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called the president a 'moron,' was that defamatory or merely the prosaic truth?
It is not true that Trump is nobody's fool. He is the GOP's.
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.
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.
With a sinking feeling, I have come to a horrible conclusion: I am addicted to Donald Trump.
The term 'disrupter' has become an accolade, like first-responder or something.
Private enterprise cannot rebuild the nation's infrastructure or keep our research institutions vibrant. Government must do what only it can do.
You have to admit that Trump is endlessly creative. He has insulted the disabled, the dead, the parents of the dead, women, Mexicans, Muslims, Asians, African Americans, former POWs, the media and, to get just a bit more specific, 'The Post.'
I don't know if history will adjudge Barack Obama a great president, but he has been a necessary one.
Fox News has been a force in converting the party of Lincoln into the party of Trump. The network's allegiance to Trump approaches mindless adoration.
