I think the 24-hour news cycle has helped exaggerate the differences between the parties. You can always find someone on TV somewhere carping about something. That didn't happen 20 years ago.

The defense budget is more than a piggy bank for people who want to get busy beating swords into pork barrels.

Law enforcement officials cannot place themselves above the law that they are sworn to defend.

I want a kinder, gentler nation.

Service is never a simple act; it's about sacrifice for others and about accomplishment for ourselves, about reaching out, one person to another, about all our choices gathered together as a country to reach across all our divides.

Not all Americans are living the American dream by a long shot. Many can't even imagine it. There are impoverished Americans, the poor and the homeless, the hungry and the hopeless, many unable to read and write. There are Americans gone astray, the kids dragged down by drugs, the shattered families, the teenage mothers struggling to cope. Then there are Americans uneasy, troubled and bewildered by the dizzying pace of change.

Nearly all Americans have ancestors who braved the oceans-liberty-loving risk takers in search of an ideal-the largest voluntary migrations in recorded history. Across the Pacific, across the Atlantic, they came from every point on the compass-many passing beneath the Statue of Liberty-with fear and vision, with sorrow and adventure, fleeing tyranny or terror, seeking haven, and all seeking hope...Immigration is not just a link to America's past; it's also a bridge to America's future.