In his first 100 days, Mr. Obama has put the fate of his presidency in the hands of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. He may come to regret that decision.

Mr. Obama plans to boost federal spending 25 percent while nearly tripling the national debt over 10 years. Americans know that this kind of spending will have economic consequences, including new taxes being imposed by the new progressives.

It's time to put America at the front of all of our agendas and to find ways to work together on common ground.

When you appoint someone, you appoint somebody because of their character, their convictions, their abilities. And not because you have a belief, a confidence, in a foreordained outcome in any given decision.

Now is the time to be bold. It is easy when the wind is at your back. But the real test is now when the wind is in our face. That's when we find out if we are tough enough. Inspired enough, committed enough.

What Mr. Obama wants in a nominee isn't really 'empathy' and 'understanding.' He wants a liberal, activist Supreme Court justice.

But, look, Washington is a town that creates myths for its own existence and its own amusement, and I was a subject of myth, sort of like Grendel in Beowulf - you know, not seen very often but often talked about.