Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale. - Gore Vidal

I shared, naturally, in that hatred of organized labor which has been the one political constant in my lifetime, culminating in Ronald Reagan's most popular gesture, the smashing of the air-controllers' union. No alternative view of organized labor has ever come to us through the popular media. If labor leaders were not crooks like Jimmy Hoffa, they were in the pay of Moscow.

Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.

Americans tend to play different roles, hoping that somehow they’ll stumble on the right one.