In order to take a nation to war, you have to believe mightily in the threat you are facing and the virtue of your cause.

As we see with Sunni and Shiite Muslims, interreligious fights are the most ugly.

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.

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.

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.

There was a time when an ordinary American could close the door and keep the world at bay. Now the world comes elbowing in every time you go online.

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?

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.

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.

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.

There is only so much chaos a nation can stand.

To anyone other than an adamant social conservative, Pence is shockingly unreasonable. But he is also shockingly hypocritical.

Pence is not a man to look a gift horse in the mouth. He's got his eye on 2020.

Pence is the very personification of the career politician. With the exception of a few years doing talk radio and television shows, he has done nothing but run for office, winning all but the first two times.

Germany's crimes were recent and of such a scale and depravity that, unless constantly faced, they will come to seem fictitious.

In my several visits to Germany, I have written in admiration of that country's strenuous efforts to face its past and make amends.

I am not a German bitter-ender. I am, though, a German never-forgetter.

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.

Republicans remain silent because Trump is doing what they want - lowering taxes on the rich, eviscerating regulations, bulldozing the environment, and insisting that a woman's body is not her own.

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.

Every rippling muscle is a book not read, a movie not seen, or a conversation not held.

I don't like what George Zimmerman did, and I hate that Trayvon Martin is dead. But I also can understand why Zimmerman was suspicious and why he thought Martin was wearing a uniform we all recognize.

Harvey Weinstein does not personify American liberalism any more than Bill O'Reilly personifies American conservatism.