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America is a fundamentally good country. We have good people with good values who want to do the right thing. But the structures of power that exist are working to their own ends to extend their capability at the expense of the freedom of all publics.

I know America's great not because I read about it in a book but because I've seen it with my own eyes.

I think America has a bad rap right now... and hopefully Obama will change that.

First of all, let me just say what's interesting about American politics is that if things really get bad here, people say nasty things about you. From a global perspective, if politics get bad, you die, so let's just keep some perspective here.

America has a rap sheet. You can't police the world and tell the world how to act when you're just as bad yourself.

Well, I had a small degree, that little infection of skepticism about America which resides in the minds of even America's closest friends. That America can't be quite as good as it says it is. And why does it need so relentlessly to keep saying how good it is?

The United States is a concept that works very well, even in bad times. But that's no reason to think its structure can be superimposed with success on any other part of the world, particularly when times are terrible.

The America I know is great - not because government made it great but because ordinary citizens like me, like my father and like you are given the opportunity every day to do extraordinary things.

I think one of the biggest mistakes that America has made - and maybe the world because this is, sort of, the core of communism and socialism - is that you can have perfect solutions to social problems like poverty, like crime. You're not going to eliminate all crime. Maybe you'll never eliminate all poverty.