I've mostly avoided the our-hope-is-better-than-your-hope, your-mother-wears-army-boots,Chelsea slug-fest between Hillary supporters and Obama supporters, but one place where it naturally has flared up is when I talk to my mother. She was bitter in that you-never-call way that mothers can get when she expressed her disappointment that my brother and I support Obama while she doubted much of what came out of his mouth and believed in Senator Clinton 100%. And she gave me my best window into how much the Clinton campaign has meant to thousands and thousands of women around the country. So I thought of her when I read this post from DownWithTyrrany. It doesn't exactly mirror my own feelings about Hillary, or my mom, but the puzzling, unbridgable gulf it describes feels really familiar:And so, my heroes were always my parents' heroes. Today is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of the last American hero, and the…

From our panel on Politics, the Internet and Journalism here at the Amherst College reunion, my fellow alum State Senator Craig Johnson (D-NY) says that elected officials can use the Internet "as a sword and a shield." An amazing ability to fundraise and move fast, he says from his own experience, but it forces politicians to "watch what they say."

Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn on whether and why the Republican party has drifted from its most basic tenets of governance, compassion and how to combine the two:Compassionate conservatism's next step – its implicit claim that charity or compassion translates into a particular style of activist government involving massive spending increases and entitlement expansion – was its undoing. Common sense and the Scriptures show that true giving and compassion require sacrifice by the giver. This is why Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell his possessions, not his neighbor's possessions. Spending other people's money is not compassionate.With a nice simple note on effective branding strategy thrown in:Regaining our brand is not about "messaging." It's about action. It's about courage. It's about priorities.Full piece in the WSJ ...