Journalistic conventions make it hard for reporters to deal with a big, complicated lie.

If sexual intercourse, as the poets tell us, began in 1963, it was another decade and a half before the American political system began to take notice.

The solution when you don't like someone's speech is not to silence that person, or that corporation. It's more and louder speech of your own.

He's nice enough not to want to be associated with a nasty remark but not nice enough not to make it. Lacking the courage of one's nastiness does not make one nice.

In 1977, at least, he wished to have people believe that he shared and was proud of an attitude toward women that is not acceptable in a politician. In 2003, all he has said is that he doesn't remember the interview.

The logic is often far-fetched - how does medical marijuana affect interstate commerce? - and some conservatives would like judges to start throwing out federal laws wholesale on commerce clause grounds. The court once again said no thanks.

Conservatives and liberals alike have been waiting for this moment for a third of a century.

Among the social sciences, economists are the snobs. Economics, with its numbers and graphs and curves, at least has the coloration and paraphernalia of a hard science. It's not just putting on sandals and trekking out to take notes on some tribe.

In those days, the late 1970s, one of the leading politicians was a soon-to-be uncle by marriage of Arnold Schwarzenegger, named Ted Kennedy.

It wouldn't be fair to say that conservatives cherish property the way liberals cherish equality. But it would be fair to say that the takings clause is the conservatives recipe for judicial activism just as they say liberals have misused the equal protection clause.

In any event, the proper question isn't what a journalist thinks is relevant but what his or her audience thinks is relevant. Denying people information they would find useful because you think they shouldn't find it useful is censorship, not journalism.

Is there any other democracy where the voters are as spoiled as they are in the United States? Especially, of course, in certain states, such as Iowa and New Hampshire, where the old joke is literally true about the citizens who say they haven't yet formed an opinion about a candidate because they've only met the fellow a few times.

There is a deadening conformity in the culture of cyberspace in which we don't intend to participate.