We learn from our mistakes, we do some reflection, we lick our wounds, we brush ourselves off - then we go forward, with the presumption of good faith in our fellow citizens.

In a world of complex threats, our security and leadership depends on all elements of our power - including strong and principled diplomacy.

When I touched my hand against the Western Wall and placed my prayer between its ancient stones, I thought of all the centuries that the children of Israel had longed to return to their ancient homeland. When I went to Sderot and saw the daily struggle to survive in the eyes of an eight-year-old boy who lost his leg to a Hamas rocket, and when I walked among the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem, I was reminded of the existential fear of Israelis when a modern dictator seeks nuclear weapons and threatens to wipe Israel off the face of the map - face of the Earth.

Excuses are tools of the incompetent used to build bridges to nowhere and monuments of nothingness

In the course of a healthy debate, we prioritize different goals, and the different means of reaching them. But without some common baseline of facts, without a willingness to admit new information and concede that your opponent might be making a fair point, and that science and reason matter - then we're going to keep talking past each other, and we'll make common ground and compromise impossible.

Literacy is the most basic currency of the knowledge economy.

I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.