We think about the enormous costs of homelessness, or the enormous cost of HIV/AIDS, over the long term, as people visit emergency rooms, etc. The more we are investing in that ounce of prevention the better off we're going to be.

The capacity of Iraq's security forces has improved, and Iraq's leaders have made strides toward political accommodation

When it comes to the budget, we know that we shouldn't be cutting more on core investments, like education, that are going to help us grow in the future. And we've already seen the deficit cut in half. It's going down faster than any time in the last 60 years. So why would we make more cuts in education, more cuts in basic research? Nobody thinks that's a good idea.

We, the people, still believe that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security and dignity.

There's no one who I believe has ever captured the soul of America more profoundly than Abraham Lincoln has.

Congress is hard to deal with, dealing with, you know, multiple parliaments and commissions and unions and this and that and the other, that's very complicated.

Part of what we have to do a better job of, if our democracy is to function in a complicated diverse society like this, is to teach our kids enough critical thinking to be able to sort out what is true and what is false, what is contestable and what is incontestable. And we seem to have trouble with that. And our political system doesn't help.