What my Republican colleagues often don't understand is that labor is a human-rights issue. I have to remind them Lech Walesa and the Solidarity movement brought down the Communist bloc.

The world is a challenging place in terms of wars and peace, basic human rights and freedoms. The Holy Father has a major role to play in global affairs. The pope is more than a spiritual leader. For the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, he is an inspiration of holiness and goodness and, above all, the faithful proclamation of the Gospel.

The passage of time hasn't changed the fact that abortion is a serious, lethal violation of fundamental human rights, and that women and children deserve better, and that the demands of justice, generosity, and compassion require that the right to life be guaranteed to everyone.

Society and government at all levels - the state level, the local level and, of course, the federal level - really needs to redouble its efforts if we're really going to make a difference in combating autism.

For me, this is a familiar image - people in the organization ready and willing to do good work, wanting to contribute their ideas, ready to take responsibility, and leaders holding them back, insisting that they wait for decisions or instructions.

I've always seen my campaigns against corruption as political work of a purer form than what opposition leaders usually do. All they do is hold roundtables and release political statements, which is all well and good. But there are concrete things that need to get done in order to achieve the basic goal of every opposition politician.

That's the true meaning of being a leader: being able to deal with the consequences and take the responsibility for it. That's who I want to be.

What happened with Hurricane Katrina was the American electorate was forced to look at what lay behind the veneer of chest-beating. We all saw the consequences of having terrible government leadership.