Michael Mandelbaum

Words matter, especially words defining complicated political arrangements, because they shape perceptions of the events of the past, attitudes toward policies being carried out in the present, and expectations about desirable directions for the future.

Read the news section of the newspaper and there is confusion and uncertainty, a world buffeted by large forces people neither understand nor control. But turn to the sports section and it's all different.

Economic growth is necessary to keep the promise - enormously important to individual Americans - that each generation will have the opportunity to become more prosperous than the preceding one, the popular term for which is 'the American dream.'

I was in a modeling contest when I was 16. People don't think it's different, modeling versus beauty pageants, but it is. As a model, you're still an individual. When you are crowned a Miss, you are representative of a lot.