The passion of American ministers for political freedom in 1776 reflected their belief in religious toleration.

Many Europeans by now must be shaking their heads in either disgust or bewilderment at America’s ongoing debate over health-care reform.

Here is a Q&A I did with my good friend Stan Guthrie discussing “The Searchers.”

Revolutionary pamphleteer Thomas Paine once observed that a political crisis could become a clarifying moment. Such moments, he wrote, “sift out the hidden thoughts of man.”