I love my sister; hate her politics. Where do we stand on the issues? Let's just say that one of us gets all our information from Fox News and the other one gets it from The New York Times.

Crucially, the president himself must become a critic. One flop may not an election make, but a second one? Can't happen. At the next rumble -- er, debate -- Mr. Obama must pull off Mr. Romney's many masks and expose his contradictions.

When we are in the throes of another election year, and we feel the need to retreat to our false sense of aloneness, let us remember we are part of a grand experiment. Compared to the cultures of Europe, Asia, and Africa, the American admixture is still wet clay.

Lisa Freeman was cradling her 6-day-old grandson in her left arm and watching the news on her iPad while her daughter and son-in-law caught some much-...

I hope that in the next chapter of American politics -- the one that begins the day after this next election -- the people of the United States will say where we want to go. And democracy, with all its grit and genuine glory, will have a chance.

The American political parties persist, nonetheless, in offering their respective truths. For Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, a restoration of the prosperous America we once knew is just around the bend. Really?