If you've ever seen the clearest and bluest of the Atlantic in the Caribbean, you have a sense of what the weather has been like in Washington, D.C., in recent days. I haven't been here in a while, but it sure welcomed me back well. I had the opportunity to see the town from a Virginia balcony with a comprehensive view. And for a bit, all I could look at was the Jefferson Memorial.

Later on, I opened up Mike Pence's new book, "What Conservatives Believe: Rediscovering the Conservative Conscience." Right away, I realized why I couldn't take my eyes off Jefferson's spot on the Tidal Basin. It's the inscription, which Pence remembers taking note of when he and his family first moved to the nation's capital.

"Etched on an inside wall of the open-air structure, it faces the statue of the primary author of the Declaration of Independence: 'God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these........

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