It requires enormous energy for us to cut the African American uninsured rate by a third. A lot of scars.

I see tragedy and comedy and pain and irony and all that stuff. But in the end I think life is fascinating, and I think people are more good than bad, and I think that the possibilities of prog­ress are real.

It's harder to end a war than begin one. Indeed, everything that American troops have done in Iraq -- all the fighting and all the dying, the bleeding and the building, and the training and the partnering -- all of it has led to this moment of success. Now, Iraq is not a perfect place. It has many challenges ahead. But we're leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people. We're building a new partnership between our nations.

I don't have a philosophical objection, necessarily, to a travel ban if that is the thing that is going to keep the American people safe.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

What Reagan ushered in was a skepticism toward government solutions to every problem. I don't think that has changed

I think if you look at almost every year under every president over the last, I don't know, 20, 30 years, you're going to be hard-pressed to find a year in which the majority of Americans thought we were on the right track.