Our criminal justice system is fallible. We know it, even though we don't like to admit it. It is fallible despite the best efforts of most within it to do justice. And this fallibility is, at the end of the day, the most compelling, persuasive, and winning argument against a death penalty.

Health care reform, the marquee legislative accomplishment of the Obama administration's first term, was passed before we entered the world of divided government.

I believe in an evolving Constitution. A flexible Constitution leaves room for us to consider not merely how the world once was, but how it ought to be.

Imagine if the pension funds and endowments that own much of the equity in our financial services companies demanded that those companies revisit the way mortgages were marketed to those without adequate skills to understand the products they were being sold. Management would have to change the way things were done.

Tax rates for the wealthy should revert to Clinton-era levels, both because it is necessary for long-term deficit reduction and because fairness dictates it. Moreover, there is no proof that higher marginal rates dissuade investment, all the rhetoric from the Right notwithstanding.

I don't have any particular expertise-I've never been a banker or an investment banker. But I did see an evolution in the system that I thought was problematic.

Public speaking? I speak to myself on the street!