Five days or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last longer.

Congress, the press, and the bureaucracy too often focus on how much money or effort is spent, rather than whether the money or effort actually achieves the announced goal.

Find ways to decentralize. Move decision making authority down and out. Encourage a more entrepreneurial approach.

Know that the amount of criticism you receive may correlate somewhat to the amount of publicity you receive.

It is worth reminding that being president is a tough job for anybody, and particularly so in the information age. There's such a glut of information. Anything a president says or does is picked up on the Internet or the 24/7 news media and criticized almost instantly. Leaders persuade through their words and as such their words need to be measured and well chosen. It is a tough job.

A terrorist can attack any time, any place using any technique and you can't defend everywhere against every technique at every moment.

Strive to make proposed solutions as self-executing as possible. As the degree of discretion increases, so too does bureaucracy, delay, and expense.