You know, I have more than enough to do without having to worry about the financial system.

Each wave of immigrants that have come in have been able to assimilate, integrate and then rise up and become part of this great American Dream.

Cutting benefits is not the right answer. Raising the retirement age is not the best option.

We know hackers steal people's identities and infiltrate private e-mails. We know foreign countries and companies swipe our corporate secrets.

In the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it.

Beside the two wars he inherited in Iraq and Afghanistan, and promised to end, a financial crisis at home had pushed the United States to the brink of another Great Depression. When we spoke with the new president in March of 2009, the economy was losing 800,000 jobs a month, the government was throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at failing banks, and the auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Politically pummeled from all sides, Obama did his best to keep a sense of humor.

I don't regret the excitement, because I do think that it helped us accomplish as much as we did.