It is possible, I supposed, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States.

We are not programmed to bury our kids.

Due process and judicial process are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security.

Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards

It's time to question laws that senselessly expand the concept of self-defense and sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods. These laws try to fix something that was never broken. There has always been a legal defense for using deadly force if - and the 'if' is important - if no safe retreat is available. But we must examine laws that take this further by eliminating the common sense and age-old requirement that people who feel threatened have a duty to retreat, outside their home, if they can do so safely.

Any decision to use lethal force against a United States citizen - even one intent on murdering Americans and who has become an operational leader of al-Qaida in a foreign land - is among the gravest that government leaders can face.

I think that what I'm doing is right. And election-year politics, which intensifies everything, is not going to drive me off that course.