When you’re young, your world is pretty limited. My parents, my family, my church dominated my world. And because Birmingham was so segregated, I didn’t really have to encounter the slings and arrows of racism on a daily basis. Obviously, from time to time I did, like when my parents took me to see Santa Claus and he wasn’t letting black children sit on his knee. But my parents tried to insulate me as much as they could.

My mom was a teacher - I have the greatest respect for the profession - we need great teachers - not poor or mediocre ones.

It's so much a part of me that it's almost hard to describe myself in the absence of [faith].

Everyone wants Russia to be a prosperous, democratic state that is fully integrated.

I believe that the Iraqis have an opportunity now, without Saddam Hussein there, to build the first multiconfessional Arab democracy in the Middle East. And that will make for a different kind of Middle East. And these things take time. History has a long arc, not a short one. And there are going to be ups and downs, and it is going to take patience by the United States and by Iraq's neighbors to help the Iraqis to do that. But if they succeed, it'll transform the Middle East, and that's worth doing.

America is a remarkable place in that social attitudes change almost imperceptibly, and then you wake up the next day and they've changed. But they've been changing all the time.

We needed to go back on the offense and offer clear leadership on Iraq.