President Obama has made the Asia Pacific region a focus of his foreign policy, and Vietnam - a large, growing economy in the heart of Southeast Asia - is critical to those efforts.

I think one of the critiques of me is that I thought I knew it all. But I was learning from the enormous resources available within the U.S. government who have a very different view of the world than many of the people commenting on foreign policy from outside of the government.

When it comes to Israel's security, our military and intelligence cooperation, that's off limits. That's protected. That's sacrosanct.

Talking and diplomacy is often seen as a concession in America, in a way that it is not in other places.

When I was a child in England before the war, Christmas pudding always contained at least one shiny new sixpence, and it was considered a sign of great good luck for the new year to find one in your helping of the pudding.

Let's face it: the War on Drugs was a disaster. It may be well intentioned... but it sent millions of kids to prison, gave them felonies oftentimes when they had no violent crimes.

World War II was a historical event, but also a movie genre, and 'Fury' occasionally prints the legend. The rest of it is plenty grim and grisly. Audience members may feel like prisoners of war forced to watch a training-torture film.

The basis for all human relationships and where we derive our greatest strength and power, trust is single-handedly the most powerful source of positive energy and, once in place, unlocks a freedom and peace to explore.