Independence Day is the worst of America's joyless national celebrations, the day when everyone will predictably act like a buffoon and nobody has the decency to Opt Out. From Park Slope to Silver Lake, from Phoenix to Saint Paul, the whole nation of grudge-laden bores will wrap themselves in the old Red, White and Blue in another futile attempt to out-patriot their enemies.

The Texas textbook whitewashers were right about Thomas Jefferson: The Library of Congress has discovered that Jefferson originally wrote "subjects" instead of "citizens" in an early draft of the Declaration of Independence. Was the "Man of the People" a phony?