Judges are appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. And it is our duty to ask questions on great issues that matter to the American people and to speak for them.

In an era when too many Americans are losing their jobs or working for less, trying to make ends meet, in close cases Judge [Samuel] Alito has ruled the vast majority of the time against the claims of the individual citizens. He has acted instead in favor of government, large corporations and other powerful interests.

Frankly, I don't mind not being President. I just mind that someone else is.

There is no morality in the mushroom cloud. The black rain of nuclear ashes will fall alike on the just and the unjust. And then it will be too late to wish that we had done the real work of this atomic age, which is to seek a world that is neither red nor dead.

Judges are appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. And it is our duty to ask questions on great issues that matter to the American people and to speak for them.

Historians will come to their own judgments about President Kennedy. Here is how I choose to remember him. He was an heir to wealth who felt the anguish of the poor. He was an orator of excellence who spoke for the voiceless. He was a son of Harvard who reached out to the sons and daughters of Appalachia. He was a man of special grace who had a special care for the retarded and handicapped. He was a hero of war who fought hardest for peace. He said and proved in word and deed that one man can make a difference.

Individual faults and frailties are no excuse to give in - and no exemption from the common obligation to give of ourselves.