I'm not going to critique the president's every utterance, but I do think America is exceptional. America is different. We don't operate in any way the Russians do. I think there's a clear distinction here that all Americans understand, and no, I would not have characterized it that way.

If you've got a brand new administration coming into office you want to have, at the very least, a national security team in place on day one.

More women are graduating from college now than men.

While other state governments stiff their vendors, close parks, delay tax refunds, and ignore unacceptably poor service levels, Indiana state employees are setting national standards for efficiency.

Where we are now is we have resolved the revenue issue and the question is what are we going to do about spending. I wish the president would lead us in this discussion rather than putting himself in a position of having to be dragged kicking and screaming to the table to discuss the single biggest issue confronting our future.

And this year, when we end the cruel, defeatist practice of passing children who cannot read into fourth grade, and when our most diligent students begin to graduate from high school in 11 years, and get a head start on college costs with the dollars they earned through their hard work, others will take notice of Indiana yet again.

We're living under the Obama economy. Any CEO in America with a record like this after three years on the job would be graciously shown the door. This president blames the managers instead. He blames the folks on the shop floor. He blames the weather.