I was blessed to go abroad and bring Americans home from jail in Syria, and Iraq, and Cuba, and Yugoslavia, and Liberia, those are high moments of my life.

If there are occasions when my grape turned into a raisin and my joy bell lost its resonance, please forgive me. Charge it to my head and not to my heart.

Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together.

We've removed the ceiling above our dreams. There are no more impossible dreams.

How can you have in our country that is based upon liberality and liberation, be so anti-liberal. That's toxic waste to our consciousness. It's hard to be an American conservative because that's a contradiction in terms. Now if you take away freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of protest, and lock people out based upon their race, their language and their religion, that's conservative and fascist. America is a liberal idea.

The invasion only made matters worse. The occupation will not work, Iraq is unoccupiable, that will not work.

We have to judge politicians by their cumulative score. In one innings they make a great catch, in another they drop the ball. In one they score a home run, in another they strike out. But it is their cumulative batting average that we are interested in.