If the Taliban comes back to power, the impact would be devastating. A country that has made great strides, in terms of development indicators, would take a huge step backwards. Afghanistan's national economy would be devastated.

We need to EARN the right to be leaders. It is to our peril when we are given things for which we are not qualified. For Believers, we must only engage in activities for which the Lord has called us.

The marginal tax rate for high income earners is going up. Small businesses are no longer enjoying some of the exemption from payroll tax. Now there will be carbon taxes.

In 2007 and 2008, it was impossible to get American and British policy makers, or Pakistani politicians, to acknowledge that the Taliban leadership was in Pakistan. This is the great virtue of the early statements of the Obama administration, when Obama himself, Richard Holbrooke and others, said that the threat to both countries comes principally from western Pakistan, in Balujistan and Waziristan. So there has been some progress, but probably the hardest part is yet to come.

Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon.

Politics is a profession, and a form of service, and it should draw people who are passionate and have deep experience of the complex, changing nature of the world.

I really see the U.S. staggering under the burden of three blows. One is 9/11 and the threat of terrorism, which is still huge in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere. The second is the failed 2003 war in Iraq, which cost so much and ruined America's credibility in the eyes of so many. Obama has repaired it to some extent, but those scars are deep. And then, thirdly, banks failed, the whole real estate market had the carpet pulled out from under it.