Al Qaeda is not the organization now that it was before. It is under stress organizationally. Its leadership spends more time trying to figure out how to keep from getting caught than they do trying to launch operations.

Republican leadership in Congress let the energy companies write the energy bill that sent prices soaring and has turned a blind eye to the struggles of working families trying to make ends meet.

Leadership is about doing what you know is right - even when a growing din of voices around you is trying to convince you to accept what you know to be wrong.

The leadership lost its nerve. Instead of taking the lead in the reform movement... they pulled the plug on it. They tried and are still trying to return the church to the dry ice of the previous century and a half.

I think Chinese leadership is trying to tell the world they have another set of logic or reasoning or values which are different from yours. Of course I don't think they believe that. It's just an argument that's made when you can't confront the truth and facts. They really want to maintain power.

I am endlessly fascinated that playing football is considered a training ground for leadership but raising children isn't. Hey it made me a better leader: you have to take a lot of people's needs into account you have to look down the road. Trying to negotiate getting a couple of kids to watch the same TV show requires serious diplomacy.

The secret to understanding me is I'm not trying to be anybody other than who I actually am. People want candid refreshing leadership. And I've always tried to go with solutions. You know I've always tried to say here's how we get our economy growing here's why we get our debt under control. That's what Mitt Romney is offering.

For the longest time I was brought up listening to only two genres of music pop and rock. So in the past few years I've been trying to expand my interests because I think that you can only write to the extent of your knowledge and if your knowledge is limited you can't write past that.

Growing up in Nashville especially in a music business family means growing up with knowledge that seems like common sense until later in life when you realize people spend thousands of dollars a semester trying to learn or pretending to learn while looking for some intern job on music row.

That was really so upsetting when you are trying to pass on some very serious knowledge and be basically treated worse than a student coming off the street because his father pays the tuition. Come on. Give me a break. This is no school. This is a joke.