The manager didn't trust the cashier with money, so she assigned a second cashier to watch the first one. But she didn't trust the second one either – she was basically just moving the problem.

I never thought I'd say it, but being the governor of California kicks butt!

By refusing to acknowledge the painful reality that most Americans had been bitten by the same bug that afflicted Roosevelt, Lodge, and Beveridge, the anti-imperialists were letting the people off the hook and in their own way preserving the American sense of innocence.

They had to begin at the beginning: learning the Morse code, flag-wagging, a succession of acks, and practice on the buzzer.