The Northwest is in better shape than it was eight years ago.

Well, I actually wrote her a letter a couple of days ago congratulating her. The tone I tried to convey in the letter is, look, you are a part of a great American historical process.

I think it is important that religious leaders of all kinds consciously attempt to distinguish between issues of natural law on which there is consensus among Catholic, Protestant, and Jew and those issues on which there must be a greater degree of tolerance of other peoples' opinions and of the diversity that is characteristic of American society.

On areas like abortion where there is major disagreement among the mainstream religious groups in the Judeo-Christian tradition, I believe that requires a lot more caution. The Jewish position on abortion is very different from the Roman Catholic position. That is reason to be cautious about enacting laws rather than saying to the religious group: instruct your followers on these matters as matters of personal religious belief.

Broadly speaking, it is my conclusion that a pretty good guide to most issues of natural law is to look at those areas where you find a consensus in the Judeo-Christian tradition. I think that is roughly, not unerringly, the outline of what I would call natural law.There must be some moral values underlying any civilization; that's my guide.

I am one of those people who deeply resents not having been born in the 19th century, when there were still open places to explore.

We had kind of a rocky start, but I spent a lot of time working with the President and handing him statistics and showing him what we were doing as we went along and kind of saying to him, you know, this is really important.