"Lincoln remained silent for what seemed a very long time. He then gathered himself up in his chair and said in a tone of earnestness that I shall never forget: 'I can't spare this man; he fights.'"

-- Alexander McClure, Pennsylvania politician and Lincoln biographer, writing of President Lincoln's response when McClure urged him in 1862 to discharge Gen. Ulysses Grant who was seen as a political rival to the first-term president.

The knock on Rep. Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's running mate is that he is too bold -- too audacious in his budget cutting, too unstinting in his description of the nation's fiscal challenges, too ideological.

These things also happen to be the very selling points of Mr. Ryan's many admirers at places like The Wall Street Journal editorial page and The Weekly Standard. The big thinkers on the right like Ryan because his policies are bold and he has envisioned a new era of limited government for the nation.