When I first came to Washington in the 1960s, even at the height of the Vietnam War, until the end there in '68 there was a certain climate of cooperation. And then in the late sixties and in through the seventies, politics began getting more mean. And then from the eighties on it seemed to be institutionalized, this personal attack business. And I just hate it.

To the extent that our workers compete with low-paid Mexicans, it is as much through undocumented immigration as trade. This pattern threatens low-paid, low-skill U.S. workers. The combination of domestic reforms and NAFTA-related growth in Mexico will keep more Mexicans at home. It is likely that a reduction in immigration will increase the real wages of low-skilled urban and rural workers in the United States.

Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world but the engine of our own renewal. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.

I have never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. I've never had an affair with her.

If we have the right preventive and primary care, if we start charging for comprehensive care in the chronic cases, 10 percent of the cases take up two-thirds of the medical expenses, and if we do more on problems like childhood obesity, that we can, to use the parlance that's popular in Washington, bend the cost curve and eventually reconcile this so our costs will be closer to our competitors and so we can cover everybody.

America can no longer afford to get the Nobel Prizes while our competitors get the profits.

This remains a very important opportunity for the American people to have their day in court against big tobacco and its marketing practices. I urge Congress to provide the funding to allow the lawsuit to move forward, and not to shield the tobacco industry from the consequences of its actions.