It is good to see women doctors and lawyers and executives. I can visualize a woman president. If I were British, I would have supported Margaret Thatcher. But no benefit to anyone can come from women serving in combat.

When my father went back into the military in 1947 and was gone for 3-1/2 years, my mother was 24 years old with four kids in a town she didn't know that well with no military services available, no family services available through the military, and that was the norm.

I cannot conjure up an ounce of respect for Bill Clinton when it comes to the military. Every time I see him salute a Marine, it infuriates me. I don't think Bill Clinton cares one iota about what happens in a military unit.

I learned long ago on the battlefields of Vietnam that in a crisis, there is no substitute for clear-eyed leadership.

Adherents of the new religious right reject the separation of politics and religion, but they bring no spiritual insights to politics.

For me, one of my earliest memories of politics where I thought that I could do anything was when Walter Mondale of Minnesota picked Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate. I literally remember what she wore - the red dress, the white pearls. And I saw that, and I thought, 'Anything is possible.'

We would be a much healthier culture if the government had never told us how to eat.

Democracy cannot be imagined without Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha, and they cannot be imagined without MPs and MLAs.