I learned some valuable lessons about the legislative process the importance of bipartisan cooperation and the wisdom of taking small steps to get a big job done.
I will say that I think Israel enjoys strong bipartisan support in the United States. It's really above and beyond American politics.
I guess because the shows were activist in their own way - the marriage of my public activism and my career activism you know - people understand me very well. They also understand there's a very strong bipartisan part in all of this.
The House has passed several bipartisan bills to ensure all Americans have the opportunity to secure a good job to provide for their families. All of these jobs bills deserve the support of our Senators and a strong show of leadership from the president.
I think that all areas of the budget have to be scrubbed. Clearly the entitlement issues have to be reformed and that's an issue that's going to require I think some strong bipartisan cooperation and leadership.
Bipartisanship isn't an option anymore it is a requirement. The American people have divided responsibility for leadership right down the middle.
Since September 11th Congress has created the Department of Homeland Security more than doubled the homeland security budget and implemented a bipartisan overhaul of our intelligence systems.
It's time to look beyond the budget ax to assure access to health care for all. It's time to look for bipartisan solutions to the problems we can tackle today and to work together for tomorrow - building a health care system that works for all Americans.
They said it was impossible to touch the third rail of politics to take on public-sector unions and to reform a pension and health benefits system that was headed to bankruptcy. But with bipartisan leadership we saved taxpayers $132 billion dollars over 30 years and saved retirees their pensions. We did it.
President Obama has offered a plan with 4 trillion dollars in debt reduction over a decade with two and a half dollars of spending reductions for every one dollar of revenue increases and tight controls on future spending. It's the kind of balanced approach proposed by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission.
The best way to begin genuine bipartisanship to make America stronger is to work together on the real crises facing our country not to manufacture an artificial crisis to serve a special interest agenda out of touch with the needs of Americans.
For instance I'm always fascinated to see whether given the kind of fairly known and established form called popular music whether there is some magic combination that nobody has hit upon before.