I wanted to reimagine the role, in a way that was respectful of its traditional responsibilities but made them part of a wider pattern of poetry about national incidents, events, preoccupations; and to spend a great deal of time going to schools tryi...
A nation may be born in a day, but the great truths which make for the glory and uplift of the race only through long ages permeate and control humanity. We must have the divine patience and understand the divine mathematics of a thousand years as on...
I had great admiration for the election of President Obama. I believe that the U.S. at that moment showed tremendous capacity to show that it is a great nation, and it surprised the world. It may be very difficult to be able to elect a black presiden...
I wrote a great deal about the Civil Rights Movement when I was writing for 'The Nation' in the '60s, and also for Esquire magazine. Reading the biography of Coffin, it just reminded me that in those days, when you saw the term 'Christian,' it usuall...
That's one of the great oddities of baseball: Success is relative. A hitter who fails 70 percent of the time at the plate is a potential member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and many World Championship teams lose more than 70 games during th...
We have always been a great national party, with views on all the main issues. We recognise that what matters to people most are those things that affect their daily lives: schools, hospitals, transport and law and order and we have plenty to say abo...
The men and women who serve this great nation, whether they are stationed in Iraq, Fort Riley, or the Korean Peninsula, or they serve us at home as our community first responders, serve because they believe in America.
When a nation has just emerged from the throes of a great civil warfare, where section was arrayed against section, class against class, two things are to be done: First, the work of reconstruction is to be effected; Secondly, a willingness for the p...
Today, as we look back on the history of our nation and take note of how far we have come as a people, we are reminded that we owe a great debt to those who fought valiantly for the freedoms that we easily take for granted.
We Americans can be rightly proud of the fact that the right to the free and unfettered exercise of religion is a primary principle in the vision and founding of our country. It defines us as a people, and has uniquely contributed to making this nati...
I went to Second City, where you learned to make the other actor look good so you looked good and National Lampoon, where you had to create everything out of nothing, and SNL, where you couldn't make any mistakes, and you learned what collaboration w...
President Obama is a utopian at heart. He wants to improve the lives of the downtrodden, which is a good thing. But, he doesn't understand that damaging the free marketplace in pursuit of 'social justice' will eventually harm those whom he wants to h...
These deserters were our undoing. I shall have a good deal more to say about them before I finally lay down my pen, and I shall not hesitate to call them by their true name, the name with which they will be for ever branded before all the nations of ...
It is my great good luck the words I use are English words, which means I live in a very old nation of open borders; a rich, deep, multi-layered, promiscuous universe, infused with Latin, German, French, Greek, Arabic and countless other tongues.
Somebody asked me - you know, how come it took you so long to win a national championship? And I said, 'I'm a slow learner; but you notice when I learn something, I have it down pretty good.'
Dillinger at one point was the second most popular man in America after President Roosevelt. And he was a national hero for a good reason. He was robbing the very institutions, the banks, which had afflicted the people for four years, and after four ...
More Americans own their home than ever before. Nearly 70 percent of American's are homeowners. So it is a good time for us to asses the positive impacts of homeownership on families, communities and on the nation's economy.
The primary thing I should do, apart from being a good husband, brother, son, and friend, is to be a citizen activist. But I'm afraid it takes away from the writing. Not that anything depends on whether I put an essay in 'The Nation' or not. But you ...
I realised that the political context had got worse since the 2010 World Cup. I tried to ignore it but I wanted, as a national coach - you may call this Utopia - to make Catalans and Basques feel good about supporting a Spanish side... to unite even ...
I think Barcelona and the Spanish national team have been good for soccer because there are a lot of teams that come up playing from the back: with the goalie, the defense, moving up a defender to midfield, playing attacking soccer. I think fans want...
Before deciding what to do about national space policy, Obama set up an outside review panel of space experts, headed up by my friend Norm Augustine, former head of Lockheed Martin and a former government official.