Rodney Frelinghuysen

The Keystone pipeline is one of those things that's sort of a political driver. And mostly, the Republicans use it to sort of embarrass the president and embarrass quite a few Democrats who feel that there's a potential for an environmental disaster.

To ask questions can become the laziest and wobbliest occupation of a mind, but when you must yourself answer the problem that you have posed, you will meditate your question with care and frame it with precision.

I was raised on John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series. Something about this genre - hard-boiled-private-eye-with-heart-of-gold - never failed to take me away from whatever difficulties haunted my daily world to a wonderful land where I was no more than an enthralled spectator.