Leading from the front: It's what built America. But these days, the federal government isn't at the front - it's cowering in the back corner of the room, ducking responsibility and hoping no one notices.

One's a dog-eat-dog world, and the other one's just the opposite.

We have always had, remember, small groups of both parties that split off. There were the "blue dog Democrats." There were the "Dixie Democrats." Democrats were never going to, ever again, pull together.

If you really believe that you're making a difference and that you can leave a legacy of better schools and jobs and safer streets, why would you not spend the money? The objective is to improve the schools, bring down crime, build affordable housing, clean the streets - not to have a fair fight.

Any friend of fossil is a friend of mine... We’ve got to do everything we can to get people out of their automobiles and into mass transit.

Well, we have to provide the world's best schools. We certainly don't have them, but that's our objective.

Most gun dealers follow the law and run honest businesses. But the statistics show that 1 percent of dealers sell more than half of all illegal guns. Why isn't the federal government going after them? Here's one reason: unlike mayors, members of Congress don't get a phone call in the middle of the night when a cop is shot and killed. They don't deliver the eulogies.