Clinton is a very capable, conscientious person. I think she cares very deeply about policy. She knows a lot about how the government works, and I think those things are very important. You don't really appreciate those things until you get a guy like George W. Bush in the White House, and then you realize that when you don't have someone who knows or cares about government policy, a lot of bad stuff can happen.

I think the tragedy of Barack Obama's presidency is that although a lot of people around the world really admire Barack Obama a lot, they don't admire the American political and economic model as much as they used to.

I think ultimately Obama's ability to rebuild America's image in the world will depend less on his personal good will and more his ability to rebuild an American economic model that seems stable and humane and dynamic.

There's nothing wrong with being proud of America, believing that America can do great things. America can do great things, it has done great things. I think we have to have the self-awareness to recognize that the world is a very, very big place, that we could be a force for good things in the world, but we have to have the humility to recognize that sometimes even when we think we're acting from the best of motives our own idealism can be infected by self-interest. Other people in other countries can see it sometimes better than we can.

On domestic policy, one of the major stories in American politics has been the growing ideological and political self-confidence of the Democratic Party, and the growing ideological and political pessimism of the Republican Party.

I've heard people in the Middle East tell me that the most inspiring thing for them as people struggling against dictatorship in the Middle East is the memory of the civil rights movement.

When you talk about the security and safety of average Americans it doesn't do average Americans a lot of good to expand America's military footprint if the daily lives of average Americans are being undermined by the fact that we're no longer able to compete in a global economy. I think that's the kind of human security we have to pay more attention to.