In a situation where it's the child or the adult, I'm going with the child.

I'm a mom, and my view of public education begins and ends with the fundamental question: Is this good for children?

When you have Candidate A saying the sky is blue, and Candidate B saying it's a cloudy day, I look outside and I see, well, it's a cloudy day. I should be able to tell my viewers, 'Candidate A is wrong, Candidate B is right,' and not have to say, 'Well, you decide.' Then it would be like I'm an idiot.

You're not going to see me ever be partisan. I'll never take a position on a candidate or an issue.

I grew up in Mexico City at a time when the country was a repressive one-party dictatorship almost wholly dependent on oil revenues.

Down with politics and the art of the possible; up with pronouncements and the allure of the prophetic: It's the way of demagogues everywhere.

Humanitarianism is commendable, but not when you're demanding that others share the burdens and expense.

Generosity is a virtue, but unlimited generosity is a fast route to bankruptcy.

'Democratic socialism' is awful as a slogan and catastrophic as a policy. And 'social democracy' - a term that better fits the belief of more ordinary liberals who want, say, Medicare for all - is a politically dying force. Democrats who aren't yet sick of all their losing should feel free to embrace them both.

Liberals always cry wolf.

Democrats should have learned in 2016 that what counts in American politics is location, not turnout.

No adviser to a president is going to get his way all of the time, but at a minimum, that adviser should be able to defend the tilt of an administration's policy as if it were his own. If not, he should make room for those who can.

Before the word 'resignation' became a euphemism for being fired, it connoted a sense of public integrity and personal honor.

People want leaders. Not ideologues. Not people whose life experiences have been so narrow that they've been able to maintain the purity of their youthful ideals. Not people whose principal contact with political life comes in the form of speeches and sound bites rather than decisions and responsibilities.

The people we need to hear from most are the ones who make themselves heard least - except, of course, on Election Day.

Ignore Trump's tweets. Yes, it's unrealistic. But we would all be better off if the media reported them more rarely, reacted to them less strongly, and treated them with less alarm and more bemusement.

Anyone who has been the victim of the social-media furies knows just how distorting and dishonest those furies can be.

The criterion for racism is either objective or it's meaningless: If liberals get to decide for themselves who is or isn't a racist according to their political lights, conservatives will be within their rights to ignore them.

Countries we love will inevitably do things we don't like or fail to understand. The same goes for people.

We elected Donald J. Trump to keep us jittery and entertained. He's delivered.

The American tradition rests on pillars of self-questioning, self-actualization, and disagreement.

It's easy to deprecate some of the puffery and jingoism that often go with affirmations of 'American greatness.' It's also easy to confuse greatness with perfection, as if evidence of our shortcomings is proof of our mediocrity.

The American birthright belongs, potentially, to everyone. This is unprecedented. Other countries accept migrants on the basis of economic necessity or as a humanitarian gesture. Only in America is it the direct consequence of our foundational ideals.

Among the events of John McCain's five-and-a-half years of imprisonment and torture in North Vietnam, probably the most heroic, and surely the most celebrated, was his refusal to accept an early release from his captors.