America has no functioning democracy at this moment.

I thought then and I think now that the invasion of Iraq was unnecessary and unjust and I think the premises on which it was launched were false.

We are a purely idealistic Nation but let no one confuse our idealism with weakness.

Too many of us now tend to worship self indulgence and consumption.

We know definitively that Al-Qaida isn't all over Afghanistan anymore. According to CIA estimates, there are less than a hundred Al-Qaida members in the entire country. Most of them are in Pakistan. So, it's hard for me to understand why we're still fighting there and sending in more and more troops. I would get out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible.

I think the only way that political system can be corrected is for the American people to see very vividly that it needs repair. If things are going to worse in the future, the American people, in every congressional district in the land, might demand that reforms take place in the political system.

Harry Truman was courageous enough to command that racial segregation be ended in the military. I was serving in a submarine in the U.S. Navy at the time he issued the order.