If we ever hope to sponsor a productive debate in this country, we will have to spend as much time listening as we do talking. Grandstanding, posturing, and trash-talking the country is not helping.

Presidents Day rarely falls in the same week as Purim, and it won't again for almost 40 years (in 2051 -- take my word for it). But these two seemingly disparate holidays have much in common.

Did you know that many of our most iconic commanders-in-chief were also hopeless romantics? In the presidential archives, love letters abound. From...

We do not need a Church of America: what the founding fathers knew in 1776 holds true in 2011. In spite of right-wing Christian rhetoric to the contrary, that we are a secular nation cannot be denied.

Alexander Hamilton warned about the dangers of "unreasonable religion." Conservatives are attempting to recreate a world that never existed. They insist that the United States is a Christian nation with no room for secular thought or other religions.

One of the enduring American myths we cherish is the two-party system. We must have two parties! To have three parties or more is impossible; to have only one, unthinkable.

How many degrees of separation must there be between a quote and its context before it becomes a lie?

So as we celebrate another day off and think of fireworks, hot dogs, and all the rest, let's give some thought to how and why this country was founded. And consider how far we have to go in meeting challenges that would daunt even the best of the Founders.