I believed that President Obama was a good choice a couple of years ago because I felt that, as a black man, if he could win, it would open up progressive possibilities in this country for a lot of people. That was my major reason for believing his candidacy was a good thing. However, I don't endorse candidates, given the type of work that I do. My job is to hold people accountable.

This administration and these folk who run Washington are no more interested in our welfare and our well being than the man on the moon. And we have got to start taking our destiny into our hands.

It's hard these days to have a conversation, at least it is for me, about [Truman]Capote without "Good Night, and Good Luck" coming up in the same conversation.

That is still the case in this country for too many students, the soft bigotry of low expectations. If you don't expect them to learn, if you don't expect them to succeed - then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I don't think I'd live anything over, even though I've made a lot of mistakes. I have learned how to see failure as a friend. So, I'm not one to live a life of regrets. I try to learn from my mistakes, but I'll take my life the way it is.

Leonard Pitts, Jr. is the most insightful and inspiring columnist of his generation.

This is not a skill problem, this is a will problem. Does America have the will to make education a priority? We know the things that work. Why don't we scale up those things that do work.