Whose leadership, whose judgment, whose values do you want in the White House when that lands like a thud on the oval office desk?

We need to deal with the problem of al Qaeda, make sure that they can't have a sanctuary in Afghanistan and guarantee that we have regional stabilization and particularly focused on Pakistan.

And the last thing that I want to see us do is ask more and more of our troops [in Afghanistan ] without guaranteeing that we're providing more and more of what's necessary to make the mission successful.

There was no blueprint or how-to manual for fixing a global financial meltdown, an auto crisis, two wars and a great recession, all at the same time.

We've been at war for many years in Afghanistan following 9/11. We know that we've got young men and women on the ground now. We've got our blood and treasure at stake there already.

I think the most important thing for us to make judgments about is what can we really do? What can we achieve?

You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.