The political and cultural landscape has become a minefield of conflicting beliefs, many now rooted less in public policy than in personal identity. One of James Madison’s central concerns in drafting the Constitution was the danger posed by “factions”—political, economic or ideological groups so driven by shared passions that they might place their own power above the rights of others...

“Politics had infiltrated every corner of government—a strong-arm takeover of the agencies by the Nixon White House.” —Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, All the President’s Men I recently reread All the President’s Men and was taken back to a time I believed America would never experience again. NEVER. More than half a century after Watergate, the country is AGAIN confronting...

“Cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.”—George Washington’s Farewell Address, 1796 “Our machines and ballot counting systems are exposed to hacking and manipulation and corruption…. Hundreds of thousands of non-citizens and dead people are listed and active on the voter rolls.”—Donald Trump, Election...

I’ve written about Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff before, but after watching his questioning of Jay Clayton, President Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence (DNI), I think he deserves another look—particularly in comparison with Atticus Finch, the central character in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. The comparison is not exact, nor should it be. Atticus is a fictional Alabama...

There’s a moment in Cool Hand Luke when Luke, played by Paul Newman, is returned to a prison camp after escaping. Determined to break his will, the guards order him to dig a hole. After the hole is dug, another guard instructs him to fill it in. Dig. Fill. Dig. Fill. The exercise is not about punishment. It’s about submission....

Part 2: Common Sense Are we still capable of that kind of clarity when it matters most? There was a moment in the birth of the country when uncertainty did not simply fade; it was confronted. Not with noise or outrage, but with moral clarity. A moment when a divided people were forced to face a harder question: not what...

The current American political order is starting to feel like a collision between the films Seven Days in May and All the King’s Men. One warns us about powerful institutions turning against constitutional democracy. The other shows how a populist leader can take grievance, resentment, and loyalty and turn them into a system of rule. I recently watched both films...

I began watching 60 Minutes when it premiered on September 24, 1968, when Harry Reasoner and Mike Wallace introduced a new kind of television journalism: “a magazine for television,” flexible enough to go wherever the stories — and the facts — led. What followed was more than a CBS program. For me, it became a Sunday night institution. Under Don...

What kind of leadership… what kind of citizenship, will it take to restore and live the values we claim to believe? It begins with service. Leadership without service is merely power. Public office was never meant to be a stage for self-glorification. It was meant to be a trust.  A president’s first question shouldn’t be, “How do I win?” but,...

There’s a scene in the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day when Phil Connors—trapped in the same day over and over again—turns to two guys in a bar and asks, “What if there were no tomorrow?” One turns to him and says, “That would mean there would be no consequences. We could do whatever we wanted!” It gets a good laugh...