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What is a man but the sum of his thoughts?

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On every question of construction [of the Constitution], let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.

Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823

• Editor's note: see statements from the third President on the dangers of an uncontrolled judiciary.

"Lies, Damn Lies and" Politics

Franklin Foer, WSJ: CNN & Saddam's Propaganda

JFK: Conspiracy Theories speech, a brilliant and insightful attack on the "discordant voices of extremism ... men who are unwilling to face up to the danger from without are convinced that the real danger comes from within. They look suspiciously at their neighbors and their leaders."

Personal Statement #11: True Confessions: Individuation: You Are Not A True Person Until You Think Your Own Thoughts

Personal Statement #12: True Confessions II: There Is Something Immoral About Denying Your Own Judgment

Personal Statement #67: The Hidden Meaning, the Many Faces, the Subtle Nature, of Evil! Would you recognize it if you met it, on the street, or in the mirror?  

George Neumayr, American Spectator: "Senator Gasbag"

Rush Limbaugh on the Drive-By Media: "If it doesn't fit what they intend to use and what they intend to try to cause to happen on a daily basis, they discard it, which is why I've always said it's not just the news that they cover and the way they cover it that contributes to the bias."

Howard Fineman, Newsweek: “The ‘Media Party’ Is Over. A political party is dying before our eyes – and I don’t mean the Democrats. I’m talking about the mainstream media”

Alan Nathan: A Chance to Put Up or Shut Up on Illegal Immigration: "In virtually all polls, Americans comprised of both Republicans and Democrats demand that we tightly protect our boundaries... party leaders purposely turn away from their respective rank-and-file voters in deference to dollar-rich interest groups wielding greater sway despite representing smaller numbers. In short, the well-moneyed minority, from each side of the aisle, is successfully overpowering the majority from both"

Amity Shlaes: The Legacy of the 1936 Election: “Critical to FDR’s plan was to invent ways to alter the bonds of towns and individuals with their states and establish bonds with Washington , D.C. One of the first important institutions through which this was accomplished was an old office that we rarely talk about anymore, the Public Works Administration or PWA. The PWA was placed under the control of Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes -- father of Harold M. Ickes, the prominent Democratic strategist who has worked with Bill and Hillary Clinton.… Historian Jim Couch of the University of North Alabama has shown the precision of the targeting of this money as a way of buying votes. He documents that Roosevelt poured money into battleground states and gave short shrift to safe states, including those of the poor South."

Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times, January 11, 2006:

"But Enough About You, Judge; Let's Hear What I Have to Say: The Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. were supposed to be about the judge, but on Tuesday it sometimes seemed as though somebody forgot to tell the senators on the Judiciary Committee. The lure of 50 cameras and the captive audience in the Senate Hart Office Building appeared too much of a temptation for some of Capitol Hill's windiest lions." (full text)

Ann Coulter, May 17, 2006: "Bush referred only once to 'jobs Americans are not doing' - which I take it means other than border enforcement and intelligence-gathering at the CIA." see entire article

Paul Johnson, A New Deuteronomy: "When we are dealing with concepts like freedom and equality, it is essential to use words accurately and in good faith... beware of those who seek to win an argument at the expense of the language. For the fact that they do is proof positive that their argument is false, and proof presumptive that they know it is. A man who deliberately inflicts violence on the language will almost certainly inflict violence on human beings if he acquires the power. Those who treasure the meaning of words will treasure truth, and those who bend words to their purposes are very likely in pursuit of anti-social ones."

Henry Steele Commager, 1947: "Our tradition is one of protest and revolt, and it is stultifying to celebrate the rebels of the past ... while we silence the rebels of the present... Who would be cleared by their [Un-American Activities] Committees? Not Washington, who was a rebel. Not Jefferson, who wrote that all men are created equal and who's motto was "rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.... Not Lincoln, who admonished us to have malice toward none, charity for all.... or Justice Holmes, who said that our Constitution is an experiment and that while that experiment is being made, 'we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death.'"

John, Revelation: "And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth ...[which had the appearance of] a lamb [but] spoke as a dragon... and deceives them that dwell on the earth" (chapter 13, verses 11, 14).

George Orwell, 1984: "If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say ... it never happened ... [then] where did that knowledge exist?... if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -- if all records told the same lie -- then the lie passed into history and became truth. Who controls the past, ran the Party slogan, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past... 'Reality control,' they called it ... "Winston sank ... into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly forget it again... "It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words... Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible ... The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect... "It was necessary ... to rewrite a paragraph of Big Brother's speech in such a way as to make him predict the thing that had actually happened... This day-to-day falsification of the past, carried out by the Ministry of Truth, is as necessary to the stability of the regime as the work of repression and espionage carried out by the Ministry of Love."

Benito Mussolini, London Sunday Express, Dec. 8, 1935: "The masses have little time to think. And how incredible is the willingness of modern man to believe." ... "Another weapon I discovered early was the power of the printed word to sway souls to me. The newspaper was soon my gun, my flag -- a thing with a soul that could mirror my own."

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf: "The German people have no idea of the extent to which they have to be gulled in order to be led" ... "The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of the nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies but would be ashamed to tell a big one" ... "All propaganda must be so popular and on such an intellectual level, that even the most stupid of those towards whom it is directed will understand it. Therefore, the intellectual level of the propaganda must be lower the larger the number of people who are to be influenced by it" ... "Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise."

Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister: "The rank and file are usually much more primitive than we imagine. Propaganda must therefore always be essentially simple and repetitious."

Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister: "The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly... it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over."

Paul Johnson, Modern Times: "Hitler's artistic approach was absolutely central to his success. Lenin's religious-type fanaticism would never have worked in Germany. The Germans were the best-educated nation in the world. To conquer their minds was very difficult. Their hearts, their sensibilities, were easier targets" ... "In a rare moment of frankness, Lenin once said that only a country like Russia could have [been] captured so easily ... as he took it. Germany was a different proposition. It could not be raped. It had to be seduced."

Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength and Love: "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

Paul Johnson, British historian, on the 1960s: "It was a decade of illusion, in which eager spirits were led by continued prosperity to believe and propagate many Utopian notions: that poverty could be abolished, cruelty and violence legislated out of existence, every freedom infinitely extended and voraciously enjoyed, and some kind of democratic and egalitarian paradise established on earth. The vast and unconsidered expansion of higher education was both a product and accelerator of these illusory forces, pouring on to the scene countless armies of your graduates, who shared these fantastic hopes and set about elbowing aside the obscurantist and authoritarian elders who alone, it was argued, prevented their realization."

Dr. Bill Bennett, President Reagan's Secretary of Education, The Death of Outrage: "Social regression and decadence are glaringly obvious in the current presidential administration. Now, whenever I make a comment these days criticizing Bill Clinton, someone inevitably asks, 'Aren't you casting stones?' It shows how far we've fallen that calling for the President of the United States to account for charges of adultery, lying to the public, perjury, and obstruction of justice is regarded as akin to stoning" ... "The problem is not with those who are withholding judgment until all the facts are in, but with the increasing number of people who want to avoid judgment altogether... We are hesitant to impose upon ourselves a common moral code because we want our own exemptions."

George Will, Dec. 17, 1998: "Serial contrition, carefully calibrated, is oxymoronic."

Abraham Lincoln: "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."

Thomas Jefferson: "I have sworn, upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

George Orwell, Animal Farm: "We pigs ... are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples... All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others."

Edward Zehr, The Washington Weekly, Oct. 9, 2000: "It seems that the media have managed to so distort the character of political discourse that malfeasance in high office has now become acceptable while public criticism of it is considered to be an inexcusable breach of etiquette."

George Orwell: Circumstances have "sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of the intelligent man."

Spike Lee, filmmaker, Fisk University, Nashville, TN, 1996-Sept-4: "As we move toward the millennium, the year 2000, the most powerful nations are not those that have nuclear bombs, but those that control the media. That's where the battle is being fought; that is how you control people's minds."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: "There is nothing quite so terrible as evil masquerading as virtue."

J. P. Morgan: "A man always has two reasons for the things he does - a good one and the real one."

Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn: "Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain't that a big enough majority in any town?"

Albert Einsten: "If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew."

Adolf Hitler: "The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one... What luck for rulers that men do not think."

Sign over the entrance to Auschwitz: "Work Brings Freedom."

Senator Margaret Chase Smith: "The Senate has been debased to the level of a forum of hate and character assassination sheltered by the shield of congressional immunity."

Henry David Thoreau: "Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes."

Marcus Tullius Cicero: "When you have no basis for argument, abuse the plaintiff."

Joaquin Setanti: "Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk."

Adolph Hitler, Sept. 1, 1939: "Polish regular officers fired on our territory. Since 5:45 a.m. we have been returning the fire."

George Orwell, 1984: “Power is inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together in new shapes of our own choosing.”

Homer Simpson: "We come in peace - we take'm your land."

Thomas Sowell: "Anyone who expresses any skepticism about claims that Head Start is a great success will be denounced as someone who doesn't 'care' about the low-income and minority children that this program supposedly helps. One of the great propaganda tricks is to change questions of fact into questions of motives."

Brit Hume, 12-17-03: The Fox News anchor reported that Nancy Pelosi (D), House Minority Whip, had communicated to her constituants in San Fancisco that the recent appropriations bill would greatly aid the Bay Area - she failed to mention, however, that "she voted against the bill."

Daniel Defoe, An Essay on the Regulation of the Press, 1704: "Whatever Party of Men obtain the Reins of Management, and have power to name the Person who shall License the Press, that Party of Men have the whole power of keeping the World in Ignorance, in all matters relating to Religion or Policy, since the Writers of that Party shall have full liberty to impose their Notions upon the World."

E. W. Scripps, 1951: "The press of this country is now and always has been so thoroughly dominated by the wealthy few of the country that it cannot be depended upon to give the great mass of the people that correct information concerning political, economical, and social subjects which it is necessary that the mass of people shall have, in order that they shall vote and in all ways act in the best way to protect themselves from the brutal force and the chicanery of the ruling and employing class."

Constitution of the USSR, 1924: "In conformity with the interests of the working people, and in order to strengthen the socialist system, the citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed by law: (a) Freedom of Speech; (b) Freedom of the Press; (c) Freedom of assembly, including the holding of mass meetings; (d) Freedom of street processions and demonstrations."

Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513: "He who desires or attempts to reform the government of a state, and wishes to have it accepted ... must at least retain the semblence of the old forms; so that it may seem to the people that there has been no change in the institutions."

Charles de Gaulle: "In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant."

John Kerry, October 16, 2004: Hunting for votes in hickville-Ohio: Can I get me a hunting license here? he asks Youngstown, Ohio store owners, Paul and Debra McKnight - in down-home talk which, he presumes, matches the local-yokal hayseed mentality. Late-night wag Conan O'Brien responds: After hearing about it President Bush said, It should be Can me get me a hunting license here?

Albert Schweitzer: "Civilization can only revive when there shall come into being in a number of individuals a new tone of mind independent of the one prevalent among the crowd and in opposition to it. A new public opinion must be created privately and unobtrusively. The existing one is maintained by the press, by propaganda, by organization, and by financial influences which are at its disposal. The unnatural way of spreading ideas must be opposed by the natural one, which goes from man to man and relies solely on the truth of the thoughts and the hearer's receptiveness of new truth."

Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com, June 5, 2006: The “Minuteman Movement has spawned 34 chapters in 30 states, a political action committee, and what [Chris] Simcox sees as the basis and impetus for a national third party… [U.S. Park Ranger Kris] Eggle was shot and killed in the line of duty on Aug. 9, 2002 while pursuing -- in tandem with the U.S. Border Patrol -- members of a drug cartel hit squad that fled into the United States after committing a string of murders in Mexico… [Simcox] explained how he apparently regularly disappointed the media. ‘I can't tell you how many interviews I have done that have never seen the light of day because they didn't get what they wanted. You know, they interview you, hoping that you are going to be a wild-eyed anti-government militia leader. And then they find you to be very conscientious and logical and pragmatic about things, and that is not what they want to portray. They want the sensational story and information that they can malign the movement with. Recently I did an hour-long interview for Good Morning America and it never saw the light of day because they didn't get what they wanted. There was another one with Geraldo [Rivera] recently that they canned.’ The fact of the matter is that Simcox just doesn't have the background that breeds a fanatic. His father is a no-nonsense Goldwater-Republican Navy veteran who still raises and lowers a flag over his home as if he were the ensign at the stern of the supply ship he once served aboard as a boiler man.

Rush Limbaugh, June 21, 2006: "Dan Rather's legacy is forged documents. The same people who made careers judging Richard Nixon on one event tell us that we must look at the entirety of Dan's career..."

Mark R. Levin, June 28, 2006: "What are we to do when media outlets knowingly and willfully divulge classified information that is critical to our winning a world war? Self-serving media bureaucrats like the New York Times’s Bill Keller can wrap themselves in the First Amendment, but these are the same people who editorialized about the limits of political speech which is covered by that same amendment (and political speech, as opposed to, say, pornography, was the kind of speech the framers were most concerned about protecting). Moreover, these media outlets are hostile to judicial nominees who embrace originalism, preferring activists who view the Constitution as 'living and breathing' - except, of course, when it comes to a free press. Then they demand a strict constructionist approach in which the words of the First Amendment are applied literally. But even under an originalist analysis, which I won’t do here, speech was not considered a boundless right. And that’s especially the case where the very survival of the country, in the midst of a war, is at stake. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has been all over the map in trying to define the limits of speech, e.g., flag-burning is covered, cross-burning is not covered, and so forth … the judiciary has become increasingly brazen as it expands its reach into war-making policies. And the reason is that the elected branches have showed political cowardice in refusing to respond. Unfortunately, today it’s left to the executive branch to press the issue as too many members of Congress have sought to assist the judiciary in weakening the presidency rather than defend it. Indeed, the likes of Arlen Specter insist that the commander-in-chief voluntarily surrender certain of his war powers, including whether to intercept enemy communications, to the judiciary. But the president’s oath to uphold the Constitution is no less solemn than a judge’s, and rather than giving up ground, the president should press ahead. And he’s on solid ground. The judiciary, up until now, had been reluctant to intervene in war-making decisions. And the media, up until fairly recent times, have been reluctant to reveal top secrets during war. The executive branch should stand on fundamental constitutional principles in defense of a country at war. It should fight to retain the president’s traditional war powers, which are now under assault."

Dick Morris, July 21, 2006: “Congress's pay is indexed to increases in the cost of living, but the minimum wage is not. And whose fault is that? In 1996, I asked President Clinton and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) if they would consider accepting an indexation of the minimum wage as an alternative to the one-shot increase that eventually passed. Lott said yes. Clinton said no. Had the president agreed, the minimum wage would now be closing in on $7, not enough to live on but a lot better than its current, paltry level. Now Hillary Clinton is attacking the administration and the Republican Congress for raising congressional pay while turning down a minimum-wage increase. But it was her husband's desire that the minimum wage not be indexed. The Democratic Party likes the annual fight to raise the minimum wage. It uses the issue to keep its base united, loyal … and poor."

Dick Morris, July 26, 2006: “Clinton’s willingness to use American power to force a cease-fire on Israel before it had fully eradicated Hezbollah [in 1996] stands in stark and sharp contrast to George Bush’s insistence on letting Israel proceed with its attacks until the terrorist group is neutralized. In a nutshell, this illustrates the difference between the Democratic and Republican approaches to Israeli security… But American Jews have voted Democrat in the past and will continue to do so in the future. It is really the Christian evangelical Right that stands up for Israel… The reason Israel has to fight in Lebanon today is that the United States did not permit it to finish the job of destroying Hezbollah in the ’90s. Now, fortunately for Israel’s true friends, the White House is letting Tel Aviv win without reining her in. Nothing so illustrates the generic anti-Semitism of the global community than its current obsession with proportionality in judging Israel’s response to the kidnapping of its soldiers and the rocket bombing of its cities. The Vatican, the European Union, and Russia have said nothing about the almost daily bombardment of Israel’s northern border by Hezbollah or the constant attacks from Gaza after Israel magnanimously vacated the strip. But now that the Jewish state is defending itself, the global community is outraged at the 'disproportionate' Israeli response. Only Jewish lives have to be dealt with proportionately… The global condemnation of Israel is simply illustrative of the low esteem attached to Jewish blood in this world where anti-Semitism comes disguised as morality and a commitment to peace.”

Peter Brimelow, Hoover Digest: "The current wave of immigration is wholly and entirely the result of government policy. Specifically, it is the result of the Immigration Act of 1965 and the further legislation of 1986 and 1990. Today it is astonishing to read the categorical assurances given by the 1965 Immigration Act's supporters. What the bill will not do, summarized its floor manager, Immigration Subcommittee chairman Senator Edward Kennedy (D.-Mass.):

First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same. . .  Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset. . .  Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia. . .  In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think.

"Every one of Senator Kennedy's assurances has proved false." read more

Rush Limbaugh, June 12, 2007: "There's already legislation on the books to handle illegals. That's why they're still called illegals. Now, the point about this is, you have to understand, and this is a pretty stark statement I'm going to make here, but the political class wants to change their bosses. Bosses right now are us. The Democrats want to change their bosses to more and more dependent victims. This never-ending flow of illegals fills that bill well... The political class wants to change the electorate, folks. They want to deemphasize or reduce your power over them at the ballot box. This immigration bill is an assault on us.  It's an assault on the American people. And you know it, and that's why they're having trouble. You don't trust them; you don't believe them; and you don't think the government as it's currently constructed and constituted can do what it says it's going to do…You don't believe that they can perform 24-hour background checks on 12 million people; when it takes you five days to get a gun; when they can't issue a passport in three months. McCain-Feingold, that was passed to shut us up, and they made no bones about it. McCain-Feingold was expressly about eliminating criticisms of politicians at certain points in election cycles via television commercials. Taxes are raised, that's an attack on liberty. It's about control."

John Kerry (who, by the way, served in VietNam), June 27, 2007: He speaks of "the structural imbalance of political talk radio" and advocates censorship, euphemistically referred to as The Fairness Doctrine by "The Ministry of Truth" - and what about your sacred "right to choose," Senator?

Rush Limbaugh, June 28, 2007, the 2nd defeat of the Amnesty Bill: "The McCainification of Lindsey Grahamnesty: I think that I can explain Senator Grahamnesty. He was a really solid conservative member of the House of Representatives. He was part of the Freshman Class of 1994, of which I was made an honorary member. During the impeachment of Bill Clinton, Senator Grahamnesty, then-Congressman Graham, served as one of the House managers prosecuting the case against Clinton in the Senate trial. I think this ended up affecting him in a way that he didn't understand and didn't appreciate. He was tagged as a kook and so you know what the Drive-By Media did to those guys. So he runs for the Senate in South Carolina, and on the basis of his solid performance as a member of Congress, he wins -- and it was appreciated, by the way, by the people of South Carolina that he served as a House manager. When he gets to the Senate, he feels compelled to change his image with the Drive-By Media and with Democrats. He wants to erase this House manager experience, so he throws in with McCain. He sees how McCain does it.  That's why we refered to him here as 'Vice President Lindsey Graham' before he became Senator Grahamnesty. So McCain's out there doing everything he can to get noticed in Washington, and the way you do that is you turn against your own party; you turn against your own president; you make the Drive-By Media your best buddy. You make deals with liberals in the Senate, and you make the Democrats in the Senate think that you're 'growing' and that you're expanding your universe and area of knowledge. Senator Grahamnesty, I think, threw in with Senator McCain and they became a team and a partnership and so forth. I think that's what happened to him." Editor's note: How often we've seen this pattern. It takes an incredibly strong person to stand up against incessant personal attacks by the media.

Richard Nixon, Six Crises: "...those who are lying or trying to cover up something generally make a common mistake – they tend to overact, to overstate their case."

Peggy Noonan (11-01-07): "Hillary Reveals Her Inner Self... Giving illegal immigrants drivers licenses makes sense because it makes sense, but she may not be for it, but undocumented workers should come out of the shadows, and it makes sense. Maybe she will increase the payroll tax on Social Security beyond its current $97,500 limit, to $200,000. Maybe not. Everybody knows what the possibilities are. She may or may not back a 4% federal surcharge on singles making $150,000 a year and couples making $200,000. She suggested she backed it, said she didn't back it, she then called it a good start, or rather 'I support and admire' the person proposing such a tax for his 'willingness to take this on.' She has been accused of doubletalk and she has denied it. And she is right. It was triple talk, quadruple talk, Olympic level nonresponsiveness. And it was, even for her, rather heavy and smug. Her husband would have had the sense to look embarrassed as he bobbed and weaved. It was part of his charm. But he was light on his feet. She turns every dance into the polka. And it is that amazing thing, a grim polka." David Limbaugh: "There's nothing difficult about this decision at all. It's a slam-dunk for anyone professing the slightest allegiance to the rule of law. Illegal immigrants should not be permitted to drive in New York or any other state. But for Clinton, it's not that simple. While not torn on the issue, she's torn between two constituencies: ethnic pressure groups and the vast majority who oppose New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's irresponsible policy. The allure of this new ready-made constituency is too tantalizing to resist. Driver's licenses are but a baby step away from voting – and voting, she presumes, Democratic. That's why Clinton and fellow liberals insist on violating our language in referring to illegals as 'undocumented workers.' 'Undocumented' is not merely a euphemism; it is a wholesale distortion, because it deliberately implies illegals aren't illegal at all but just a trifle behind in completing that annoying paperwork that will validate their legitimacy. It's as if the process of acquiring citizenship is nothing more than a bureaucratic formality, as if becoming an American citizen is no more sacred than filling out an administrative form." Dick Morris: "Every time she approaches a microphone, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton labors under the necessity of fudging on her program - offering, instead, an artificial personality and a variety of poll-tested bromides that let her duck key issues. The resulting circumlocutions were evident in Tuesday night's Democratic debate. Her plans for Social Security? Clearly, she thinks she may need to raise Social Security taxes - but she can't say so. Instead, she repeats the poll-tested mantra of ‘fiscal responsibility’ and a ‘bipartisan commission’ … Driver's licenses for illegal immigrants? Certainly, she favors them. During her husband's administration, she helped kill proposals to ban them. In the Senate, she voted against prohibiting them. But she can't say so without seeming to be soft on terror, so she temporizes, expressing sympathy - but not support - for the plan. A day after the other Democrats battered her over the issue in the debate, she released a statement of 'general' support for Gov. Spitzer's goal of making illegal immigrants eligible for driver's licenses in New York. But, once again, a la Hillary, she sent confusing signals by stating that she hadn't studied it and wasn't 'endorsing' any plan. So she's apparently for it but not for it. Get it? … On issue after issue, Hillary mustn't let voters know what she plans or what she wants to do. That's the difficulty in being Hillary."

Joseph R. Fornieri, The Lincoln Forum, Lincoln Revisited (2007): Fornieri, in this collection of Lincoln essays, helps us to understand Judge Douglas’ central undergirding platform, the doctrine of “popular sovereignty,” which would allow new territories to extend or deny the institution of slavery. This precept of self-determinism is “perfectly logical,” responded Lincoln, “if there is no difference between hogs and negroes… [but the question is] whether a negro is not or is a man. If he is not a man … he who is a man may, as a matter of self-government, do just as he pleases with him. But if the negro is a man [shall he not] also govern himself? When the white man governs himself that is self-government; but when he governs himself, and also governs another man [without that other man’s consent], that is more than self-government – that is despotism.” Lincoln went on to explain how the European “Divine Right of Kings,” something from which we had recently extricated ourselves, employed, in principle, this same notion of privileged and superior certain ones ruling over a lesser class of beings. All of this violated the “ancient faith,” a term by which Lincoln referred to the precepts of the Declaration of Independence, the moral foundation of the nation, in its statements that “all men are created equal.” “No man,” Lincoln asserted, “is good enough to govern another man, without that other’s consent. I say this is the leading principle -- the sheet anchor of American republicanism.” Douglas weakly responded with a claim that God had placed Adam and Eve in the garden and had told them to make their choice – exalting “choice” as a universal trump card. Lincoln bashed this sophistry with “God did not place good and evil before man, telling him to make his choice. On the contrary, he did tell him there was one tree, of the fruit of which, he should not eat, upon the pain of certain death.” Fornieri, speaking even more plainly: “If taken to its logical conclusion, Douglas’ reading of the Bible would obliterate any firm basis for moral judgments by making them entirely relative to personal choice.” Lincoln then goes further and eviscerates notions of choice and prattle of self-government as nothing more than an undisguised policy of “self-interest” masquerading as morality. Lincoln began speaking of these issues with earnest in 1854, after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. His continued insightful commentary culminated in the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. Judge Douglas won the Illinois senate seat in ’58 – but Mr. Lincoln, his punch-and-jab speeches gaining the respect of some and the attention of all, found himself catapulted to the Presidency only two years later.

Richard Feynman: "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that." Feynman once said that if a principle of physics could not be explained to a freshman class, it was not yet well understood. I seem to recall Einstein, as well, saying that if one could not clearly explain a concept to one's grandmother, then one did not fully understand the concept.

Lord Acton: Few discoveries are more irritating than those which expose the pedigree of ideas.

If you can’t explain what you’re doing in simple English, you’re probably doing something wrong.  

                               Alfred Kazan

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