You go to college not only for the latest knowledge but also to meet people from different backgrounds. That's the genius of the American higher-education system compared with the Europeans'. We don't simply skim the elite.

Most North Americans know that human-caused global warming is real even if political leaders don't always reflect or act on that knowledge.

I wish I had known more firsthand about the concerns and problems of American businesspeople while I was a U.S. senator and later a presidential nominee. That knowledge would have made me a better legislator and a more worthy aspirant to the White House.

The ordinary American - as far as I can tell - knows so much less than he did fifty years ago and has such poor work habits compared with fifty years ago that the average multiplicand of knowledge/capabilities is a much smaller number than it was in 1961.

A serious problem in America is the gap between academe and the mass media which is our culture. Professors of humanities with all their leftist fantasies have little direct knowledge of American life and no impact whatever on public policy.

It is now common knowledge that the average American gains 7 pounds between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day.

In my professional work with the Agency by the late '70s I had come to question the value of a great deal of what we were doing in terms of the intelligence agency's impact on American policy.

There are whole precincts of voters in this country whose united intelligence does not equal that of one representative American woman.

I think America has more than enough maturity and intelligence to start exercising its world leadership responsibly.

Our men and women in uniform deserve the best intelligence possible to help them protect America.