I'm much better informed than Mr. Clarke ever was about the nature of the intelligence that was available again Osama bin Laden and which was consistently denigrated by himself and Mr. Tenet.

One of the great intellectual failures of the American intelligence community, and especially the counterterrorism community, is to assume if someone hasn't attacked us, it's because he can't or because we've defeated him.

Bin Laden is remarkably eager for Americans to know why he doesn't like us, what he intends to do about it and then following up and doing something about it in terms of military actions.

Saudi Arabia was, until just a few years ago, probably one of the most safe countries on earth. And now the paper is daily full of activities and shootouts between Islamists who supported Osama bin Laden and the government there.

The man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap.

Arkansas needs leaders who will stand up to anyone in Washington, from either political party, and do what's right for Arkansas and for our country.

I mean, I am fully aware of my influence and my responsibility to society in general representing the gay community. But in the same time, I don't represent the entire gay community because it's a vast, vast community, as one can imagine.

We have a strong tradition in our country of senior leaders being apolitical, nonpartisan.