Everywhere that I go in the world, people desperately look to American leadership in all of their world's most difficult problems. You can look at any region of the world and the United States is still the country to which those regions look for leadership.

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

First, I wanted to answer the question I'm most frequently asked: "How did you become who you are?" Well, you had to know John and Angelena Rice.

Any time you have a situation in which you are calling for more time rather than calling for Iraq to immediately comply, it plays into the hands of Saddam Hussein.

I grew up in a very loving middle class family. My parents were educators. I'm not even the first PhD in my family. They tried to shield me, just as other parents in my neighborhood tried to shield their children. But you knew there was a reason that you couldn't go to that theme park or to a movie theater or to a hamburger stand. They couldn't shield you completely. What they did though was they never let it be an excuse for not achieving, and they always said racism is somebody else's problem, not yours. They tried in that way not to make us bitter about Birmingham.

I've always said as a political scientist that "culture" is what we use when we can't explain things. I think it's more about accessibility. Part of the problem is that this is an expensive game [golf]. I know in a couple of places where there are black members, and they come from pretty much the same socioeconomic level that the white members come from.

Working very closely with the Department of Homeland Security to match up what is available with what is needed.