One of the truly bad things about our politics is that it incites each administration to attack every last thing its predecessor has done, and to eit… - Al Gore

Two thousand scientists in a hundred countries, engaged in the most elaborate, well-organized scientific collaboration in the history of humankind, have long since produced a consensus that we will face a string of terrible catastrophes unless we act to prepare ourselves and deal with the underlying causes of global warming.

If we meet our great responsibility, I believe we can not only deter aggression and create an ever more secure and widening world of security — but we can also shape, step by step, a future of liberty and opportunity across the world.

Indeed, the secrecy of the program indicates an understanding that the regular military culture and mores would not support these activities and neither would the American public or the world community. Another implicit acknowledgement of violations of accepted standards of behavior is the process of farming out prisoners to countries less averse to torture and giving assignments to private contractors. President Bush set the tone for our attitude for suspects in his State of the Union address. He noted that more than 3,000 "suspected terrorists" had been arrested in many countries and then he added, "and many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way: they are no longer a problem to the United States and our allies." George Bush promised to change the tone in Washington. And indeed he did.