There are so many lessons to be learned from this terrible tragedy. I want to emphasize just one, but it's a big one. We have seen and heard much about the failure of FEMA and the failure of the federal government generally, and the connections of that failure to budget...

I'm a little slow in responding to David Brooks' New York Times column of August 7 ("The Virtues of Virtue"), because I've been on vacation and trying to free my mind of this sort of thing, but I just can't sit this one out.

"America is becoming more virtuous"?...