We don't disparage the motives of politicians, they have the same motives we do. We don't distrust the motives of bureaucrats, we trust them all too well.

We gripe about bias in the mainstream media because freedom of the press is only meaningful if you happen to own a press, but enough people have presses to keep politicians on their toes.

Why can't we Americans buy cheap cars? The cheapest car in the US costs about $20,000, about 8 times the cost of Tata's offering.

Bush-bashers hate to admit it, but a smaller percentage of active-duty military personnel died during both Bush administrations than during the Reagan and Carter administrations.

Principals have be to able to fire teachers, or you can't run an effective school.

Some idealists suggest that election campaigns be paid for by the Treasury -- taxpayers would pay for campaigns intended to elect people we don't like. In fact, we DO have public campaign funding but nobody wants to admit it.

A president is supposed to be emotionally stable, not a weeping willow.

One of the supreme ironies of our time is that a religiously-motivated US president went to war in the name of God to set up a non-religious state in Iraq to protect Americans against a highly religious movement known as Al Qaeda.

The recent, less-than-informed coverage of the death of Benazir Bhutto reminds us of Neville Chamberlain's infamous comment about Czechsolovakia as " a faraway country about which we know nothing."

Of course Mr. Musharraf doesn't want to share power. Who does? Does The Times want to share power and influence with the LA Times or with the Washington Post? Of course not.