Let me remind you all that the first task of American foreign policy is to reduce threats to the United States.

American foreign policy, for all its shortcomings, has underpinned political stability around the world.

Inequality of any kind, once considered a normal, natural part of human existence, came to be seen in the course of the twentieth century as increasingly illegitimate.

The attacks of September 11, 2001, were spectacular, riveting, grim, costly and searing. The shock that they caused reverberated throughout the world. What happened in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania ended the lives of thousands of people and changed the lives of many more. But they did not change the world.

One thing worse than an America that is too strong, the world will learn, is an America that is too weak.

The values, the programs, the formula, the determination, and the patriotism responsible for America's past success are still here to be tapped.

If architecture is, as is sometimes said, music set in concrete, then football and basketball may be said to be creativity embodied in team sports.