There is nothing more American than peaceful protest.

People whose terms go for five years or longer, like FCC commissioners. That's a higher standard. Then district judges, who are appointed for a lifetime but can be overruled. Then Court of Appeals judges. They're not the highest level, but they're almost the final word. And then, of course, the Supreme Court.

We should not use special budget procedures to jam through legislation to drill in the Arctic Refuge. This topic is too important to the public to address it in such a back-door manner. We should be having a full, open discussion of the issue during an energy debate.

It's not enough to be in the majority, you have to stand for something.

Americans want to defeat terrorism and they want the basic character of this country to survive and prosper. They want both security and liberty, and unless we give them both, and we can if we try, we have failed.

The conservative version of American exceptionalism has become a password of sorts for candidates who want to prove their credentials to a right-wing America.

Children are not being assaulted by images that appear on a computer screen. Any Internet user knows it is quite difficult to stumble across pornography.