This is a good time to ask apologists for the Islamic regime, who degrades Islam? Who imposes stoning, forced marriage of underage girls and flogging for not wearing the veil? Do such practices represent Iran's ancient history and culture, its ethnic and religious diversity? Its centuries of sensual and subversive poetry?

There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history. It is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations.

For most of our history, Americans enjoyed both liberty and security from foreign threats.

If I had been elected president in 1948, history would be vastly different. I believe we would have stemmed the growth of Big Government, which had begun with the New Deal and culminated with the Great Society.

Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers.