There's a very big gulf between the black civil rights leadership in America and the black middle class in America. The black middle class are conservative. Many of those minorities can be persuaded to be members of the Republican Party.

The war and terrorism in the Middle East the crisis of leadership in many of the oil-supply countries in the developing world the crisis of global warming - all these are very clearly tied to energy.

Bipartisanship isn't an option anymore it is a requirement. The American people have divided responsibility for leadership right down the middle.

Doing nothing while the middle class is hurting. That's not leadership. Loose regulations and lax enforcement. That's not leadership. That's abandoning our middle class.

We're going to need to absorb some pain. The Republicans want to pile all the pain on people who can least afford it and the middle class and Democrats under his leadership want to make sure that we can address deficit reduction and continue to make investments and shared sacrifice is going to be imperative in order to be able to do that.

It's really necessary for the United States to continue to give strong leadership to the Middle East peace process supported by European countries at the same time.

Doubt is the middle position between knowledge and ignorance. It encompasses cynicism but also genuine questioning.

I was brought up in a very open rural countryside in the middle of nowhere. There were no cell phones. If your lights went out you were lit by candlelight for a good four days before they can get to you. And so my imagination was crazy.

In fact it works the other way: A government as big and bossy as this one is maintained on the backs of the middle class and those who hope to join it.

I hope that none of the countries in the Middle East are planning anything but the peaceful utilization of nuclear energy.