We must know the difference between sweat and tears. Sweat is wet. Tears are wet. Sweat is salty. Tears are salty. But progress comes through sweat. Progress never came through tears.

For me, Barack Obama's election was a milestone of the most extraordinary kind. On the day he was elected I felt such hope in my heart. I thought we were seeing the beginning of a new era of equal opportunity across race and gender such as America had never known before.

I've paid my dues. I've earned your votes. Send me.

Surrender had played out for good with me.

In Afghanistan, there is a plan to build democracy; hundreds of thousands of troops are protecting it. There is a plan to rebuild and reconstruct there. But many thousands of Americans die from violence and poverty every year and we don't have a plan for reconstruction at home.

Those who write the editorials and those who write the columns, they simply are unaccountable. They're free to impose their cultural politics in the name of freedom of the press.

Conservatives and liberals can find common ground.