The 2008 election settled nothing, not even for a while. Our national politics are reflecting what appears to be going on geologically, on the bottom of the oceans and beneath the crust of the Earth: the tectonic plates are moving.

Candor is a compliment; it implies equality. It's how true friends talk.

Democracy involves that old-fashioned thing called working it out.

All great political families have myths: stories they tell themselves about how history happened.

Ten years ago, we were seen as a virtually failed state, but today we are a vibrant democracy. You can walk safely through the streets of Bogota these days.

I am confident the Obama administration will work professionally with any Israeli government.

Rahul Gandhi has promised to remove poverty and unemployment. There is nothing new about the election promises of Congress. Had only half of those promises been fulfilled, India would have been the most prosperous country in the world today.

Presidential elections and the voter experience have long been fraught for black people. From racist poll taxes to made-up literacy tests to the egregious rollback of voting rights over the past 50 years, American democracy has, at times, felt like a weird and failed social experiment.