In 2006 it was a horrible election year, and, you know, I lost. But I lost because I continued to be a constant conservative, and the last six years I was someone who was a national figure in the sense that I was the third ranking Republican in leadership and I had just run President Bush's campaign in Pennsylvania.

I'm someone who believes that making things creates wealth.

But look what happens when the government gives you rights. When the government gives you rights, unlike when God gives you rights, the government can take them away. When government gives you rights, the government can tell you how to exercise those rights.

Look at the political base of the Democratic Party: It is single mothers who run a household. Why? Because it's so tough economically that they look to the government for help and therefore they're going to vote.

Working with BET always provides a reminder of why I began to do this work. It is essential that we have platforms where we can discuss our politics, our challenges, and our culture through our respective lenses.

In African-American culture, there's often a family historian, someone who does the genealogy or keeps the family Bible. I became aware that might be one role the poet has.

Caricatures created by politics never fit comfortably into the Oval Office.

I saw a lot of children who were in the latest stages of malaria. Those kids died very quickly.