If you have got high-ranking officials reaching down five levels in the bureaucracy to drag an analyst up to their office to berate them and threaten their jobs because they don't like the conclusions about an intelligence matter, that, in my view, is dangerous.

Secrecy can spring from the best motives; but as it grows it begins to exist only for itself, only for its own sake, only to cover its own abuses.

Our nation's children are our greatest asset and our most precious treasure.

Our strength and our security depends obviously on having a strong military, having a strong economy, and also on our ability to have willing allies and nations join us in common global efforts, the principal one today being terrorism.

It cannot bring back and make whole those who suffered and died by a racist's criminal hand. But it can at least reaffirm our nation's commitment to seek the truth and make equal justice a reality.

We owe it to each other - and to our children and grandchildren - to leave our planet in a better state than when we found it.

For three decades, Democrats and Republicans worked together to make our environment better.