The lesson of the last year is this: foreign policy can't be managed through the politics of personality, and our President would do well to take note of an observation John F. Kennedy made once he was in office - that all of the world's problems aren't his predecessor's fault.

When my own son is going through what he goes through, coming back, I can certainly relate with other families, who kind of fill these ramifications of some PTSD.

The GOP needs to live the planks of its platform, not just offer lip service.

Children with special needs inspire a very, very special love.

To win that war [with radical Islamic extremists] we need a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern.

Well, it's always, though, safer in politics to avoid risk, to just kind of go along with the status quo. But I didn't get into government to do the safe and easy things. A ship in harbor is safe, but that's not why the ship is built. Politics isn't just a game of competing interests and clashing parties. The people of America expect us to seek public office and to serve for the right reasons. And the right reason is to challenge the status quo and to serve the common good.

Common sense tells us that the government's attempts to solve large problems more often create new ones. Common sense also tells us that a top-down, one-size-fits-all plan will not improve the workings of a nationwide health-care system that accounts for one-sixth of our economy.