A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth.

Of course, conservatives always claim to be against judicial activism.

He hasn't said whether he remembers the episode itself - or, if he doesn't, whether that is because it never happened or because it happened too often to keep track. More important, he hasn't said what he thinks about it all from the perspective of 2003.

Almost any government activity can also be seen as taking property "without just compensation." The basic model of an unconstitutional "taking" would be if the government threw you out of your house.

In recurring episodes over the next couple of decades, the minority view gradually won. A profusion of factors differentiates each case from the others, including naked partisanship on both sides, but the trend has been clear.

He's nice enough not to want to be associated with a nasty remark but not nice enough not to make it. Lacking the courage of one's nastiness does not make one nice.

In those days, the late 1970s, one of the leading politicians was a soon-to-be uncle by marriage of Arnold Schwarzenegger, named Ted Kennedy.

A Supreme Court decision that concessions of this sort were unconstitutional would have taken them off the table and actually increased the effective sovereignty of elected officials.

It wouldn't be fair to say that conservatives cherish property the way liberals cherish equality. But it would be fair to say that the takings clause is the conservatives' recipe for judicial activism just as they say liberals have misused the equal protection clause.

They can't take your house and give it to the mayor's mistress, even if they pay you for it. But they can, apparently, take your house and tear it down to make room for a development of trendy shops and restaurants, a hotel and so on.

One answer is that the town's elected officials thought that the project served a public purpose and that the various subsidies and favors were worth the price. But they may or may not have thought this.

A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth.

In any event, the proper question isn't what a journalist thinks is relevant but what his or her audience thinks is relevant. Denying people information they would find useful because you think they shouldn't find it useful is censorship, not journalism.

Conservatives and liberals alike have been waiting for this moment for a third of a century.

So the danger of conservative judicial activism has been averted for another year. Stay tuned.

In 1977, at least, he wished to have people believe that he shared and was proud of an attitude toward women that is not acceptable in a politician. In 2003, all he has said is that he doesn't remember the interview.

The case decided on Thursday, though, seemed promising to takings fans because it wasn't about compensation. It was about the requirement that any government taking must have a "public purpose."

If sexual intercourse, as the poets tell us, began in 1963, it was another decade and a half before the American political system began to take notice.

The logic is often far-fetched - how does medical marijuana affect interstate commerce? - and some conservatives would like judges to start throwing out federal laws wholesale on commerce clause grounds. The court once again said no thanks.

The "takings" clause of the Fifth Amendment is for conservatives what the equal protection clause of the 14th is for liberals.

Almost any government activity can also be seen as taking property 'without just compensation.' The basic model of an unconstitutional 'taking' would be if the government threw you out of your house.

The 'takings' clause of the Fifth Amendment is for conservatives what the equal protection clause of the 14th is for liberals.

The case decided on Thursday, though, seemed promising to takings fans because it wasn't about compensation. It was about the requirement that any government taking must have a 'public purpose.'

The world is... the natural setting of, and field for, all my thoughts and all my explicit perceptions. Truth does not inhabit only the inner man, or more accurately, there is no inner man, man is in the world, and only in the world does he know himself.

Sure I think it is healthy to speak the truth, and be who you are, and be proud of that.

The Republicans claim they are for strengthening Pell grants when the truth is that over the last four years, their legislation has done the exact opposite.

It's a lot easier to tell the truth usually.

A man may be in as just possession of truth as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender.

A novel should be an experience and convey an emotional truth rather than arguments.

Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being.

Truth lies within a little and certain compass, but error is immense.

There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth.

Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were agreed.

Christians must be Jews. The truth of what we believe depends on the truth of Judaism, depends on the first covenant.

Beauty, like truth, is relative to the time when one lives and to the individual who can grasp it. The expression of beauty is in direct ratio to the power of conception the artist has acquired.

Once to every person and nation come the moment to decide. In the conflict of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side.

The truth is really an ambition which is beyond us.

There is a contest old as Eden, which still goes on - the conflict between right and wrong, between error and truth. In this conflict every human being has a part.

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.

To the scientist there is the joy in pursuing truth which nearly counteracts the depressing revelations of truth.

The truth is, we haven't really figured out yet how artists are going to thrive in modern mass societies. We're all experiments.

This nation was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the principle - among others - that honest men may honestly disagree; that if they all say what they think, a majority of the people will be able to distinguish truth from error.

Every sentence has a truth waiting at the end of it and the writer learns how to know it when he finally gets there.

Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can comprehend. To understand the things that are at our door is the best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond.

The truth is more important than the facts.

What motivates me in art is the ugly and beautiful nature of the truth. It has to be truthful and honest, even if it is ugly and grotesque.

The truth is, it's not a great career move to create a readership and then, in effect, abandon them.

One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.

The unions claim the deck is stacked against them when it comes to labor laws, but the truth is many private and public sector workers are forced to pay union dues as a condition of their employment, yet they have little say in how the unions spend their money.