I told my father I had to try political science for a year. He thought I was throwing my life away.

History is just littered with problems that were solved that were supposed to be impossible.

I don't know of a single instance of these Arab freedom fighters holding up pictures of bin Laden. I know many instances of them displaying American flags in Benghazi or painting 'Facebook' on their foreheads in Cairo. The idea of freedom . . . is absolutely contradictory to what bin Laden stood for, which was . . . taking Muslims back to some medieval theocracy and encouraging people to die not for freedom but to go to paradise and to kill innocent people along the way. The contrast is really striking.

Public action should seek to expand the set of opportunities of those who have the least voice and fewest resources and capabilities.

People change their habits. I know Americans who don't go to Paris because they think it is too dangerous.

There has been a good deal of comment — some of it quite outlandish — about what our postwar requirements might be in Iraq. Some of the higher end predictions we have been hearing recently, such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to provide stability in post- Iraq, are wildly off the mark. It is hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army — hard to imagine.

For the private sector to flourish, special privilege must give way to equal opportunity and equal risk for all.