As crucial as religion has been and is to the life of the nation, Americas unifying force has never been a specific faith, but a commitment to freedom – not least freedom of conscience. – Jon Meacham
The past always seems somehow more golden, more serious, than the present. We tend to forget the partisanship of yesteryear, preferring to re-imagine our history as a sure and steady march toward greatness. – Jon Meacham
If a person is homosexual by nature – that is, if ones sexuality is as intrinsic a part of ones identity as gender or skin color – then society can no more deny a gay person access to the secular rights and religious sacraments because of his homosexuality than it can reinstate Jim Crow. – Jon Meacham
It would be great if politics were fact-based, but it is not, and it is surely not nuance-based. What works in a classroom or a think tank does not work on Capitol Hill or in the White House. Obama sometimes seems to be running the Brookings Institution, not the country. – Jon Meacham