I am confident, with the leadership and the backing of the American people, President Obama will turn this country around.

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise - not our political opponents, and certainly not a disingenuous filmmaker, who would have us believe.

It's the only way that I see that it can be done," McCain said. "Obviously, it has failed in the past, but I also notice there is a somewhat changed attitude on the part of the American people about this issue.

I'm not surprised that Governor Dean would oppose [the $87 billion to fund Iraq reconstruction].... I've lost confidence that he has any understanding of the national security responsibilities of a President... [b]ecause I don't believe that he has any understanding of the international role that the United States has to play in the world. I think it's a kind of a pseudo-isolationism that appeals to the base of the caucus voters. I do not believe that particularly in the case of Iraq that Governor Dean has any fundamental understanding of what's at stake here.

Thousands of Americans have given their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq upholding their oaths and defending this nation. Chelsea Manning broke her oath and made it more likely that others would join the ranks of her fallen comrades. Her prison sentence may end in a few months' [time], but her dishonor will last forever.

Subjecting prisoners to abuse leads to bad intelligence, because under torture a detainee will tell his interrogator anything to make the pain stop. Second, mistreatment of our prisoners endangers U.S. troops who might be captured by the enemy – if not in this war, then in the next. And third, prisoner abuses exact on us a terrible toll in the war of ideas, because inevitably these abuses become public.

If we do nothing, we are handing our children a ticking time bomb that will require they pay ever greater payroll taxes just as they are beginning their careers, starting their own families and staking their claim to the American Dream.