First, the year 2004, the year past, the Comptroller General of the United States, David A. Walker, said that arguably it was the worst year in American fiscal history, clearly setting our Nation on an unsustainable path.

I think the job of leadership is to expand what can be talked about and to get consensus on the nature of the problem, and that is most of the job. Because once you do that, once you have diagnosis, treatment options are obvious.

This Congress is simply not doing its job under Republican leadership.

Equality under the law is the slow triumph of hope over history.

The federal government does not have the authority to tell landowners and ranchers and farmers that they can't farm and ranch their land because someday an endangered species might live there.

I think we've always thought that it's important to have a positive relationships with local government rather than taking a confrontational kind of stance.

I wrote a lot about Cheney in 'The New Yorker,' but I wrote very little of what I know. The only time I ever mentioned what he ever said at a meeting was when there were many people there who were not insiders, you know, other people not in the government, so my sources would be protected.

Democracy! Bah! When I hear that I reach for my feather boa!