Selling public property is the true Chicago way. Had Mr. Obama not been elected president, the nation's business journals would be falling over one another to praise his city for its daring, market-friendly innovations.

Most of Roosevelt's innovations have been the law of the land for 70 years now, and yet we are still a free society free enough, that is, to allow tens of thousands of protesters to gather on the National Mall and to broadcast their slogans and speeches to the world via C-SPAN.

We are watching industries crumble, Wall Street firms disappear, unemployment spike, and unprecedented government intervention. And our designated opinion leaders want to know: Is Obama up this week? Is he down? And is his leadership style more like Bill Clinton's, or Abraham Lincoln's?

When done right - or wrong, depending on how you look at it - deficits remove liberal options from the table. Suddenly there's no money for building bridges or inspecting meat. Not surprisingly, running up a deficit is a strategy favored by the wrecking crew for its liberal-killing properties.

I certainly enjoy going on stage and lecturing and talking to Congress. That's a personality explanation. And given government proposals, I thought I had a clear view that they were antagonistic to human freedom.

We are a democracy: there are enough checks and balances in our country, and we have an impeccable record of not contributing in any way to nuclear proliferation.

I come from election, I come from the people. I owe gratitude to our people. I do everything for the good of the country and the people.

I believe that our office has clearly been the leader in building coalitions, in getting other universities across the contrary to interact more effectively with the government and particularly the Congress.