Unlike Washington, which is stuck in ideological gridlock, Americans feel the impact of climate change in their own hometowns and they know something must be done.

I've been having problems with the right wing lately.

Those who try to stifle the vibrancy of our democracy and shield policies from scrutiny behind a false cloak of patriotism miss the real value of what our troops defend and how we best defend our troops. We will ask questions and we will defend our democracy.

Nobody's interests are served by what's happening in Syria today. It's a catastrophe. It's the worst human catastrophe since World War II. And, as I said just now, it represents a failure of the entire international community to come to grips with solving it.

So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real.

That is what Americans do. We face a challenge - no matter how great - because we know that on the other side there is always hope.

Just the fact that we can't pass budgets in our Congress, just the fact that we are gridlocked in our own democracy, the fact that everybody who travels can see that we're not investing in our airports, in our rail, in our infrastructure and so forth, people are noticing a United States that is not getting the job done in some ways.