The president felt that it was important to send an ordinary citizen to experience the excitement of space travel as a representative for all Americans.

There are many reasons why Mitt Romney should not become president but perhaps the most important of all is the narrowness of his experience perspective and vision.

People who run for president seriously and people who become president enter a bizarre secret society in which they have had an experience that none of us will ever have.

America is an idea. And it's the solemn responsibility of each 'temporary' president to protect and nurture that noblest of all ideas - with integrity. This man Mitt Romney has shown - not through his experience but through his actions and words - that he is unqualified to carry out that responsibility.

What if Barack Obama established a Presidential Advisory Committee that would meet once every couple of months bringing together the former presidents for a conference in order to seek their collective wisdom? There is a wealth of experience in former presidents that generally goes untapped.

The equality that we are all entitled to as citizens of this democracy can't be avoided by some religious dogma of a President who's is supposed to believe in the notion of separation of church and state. And he frankly doesn't.

This Bush administration has a growing credibility gap maybe even a credibility chasm on environmental policy. The President has lost the trust of the American people when it comes to the environment.

Since the day he came into office President Bush has worked to gut more than 34 years of hard work by weakening many of our Nation's standing environmental laws some of which were signed into law by his father.

Federal elections happen every two years in this country. Presidential elections every four years. And four years just isn't long enough to dismantle all the environmental laws we've got in this country.

I've used the prestige and influence of having been a president of the United States as effectively as possible. And secondly I've still been able to carry out my commitments to peace and human rights and environmental quality and freedom and democracy and so forth.