Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials but the voters of this country.

We call ourselves public servants but I'll tell you this: we as public servants must set an example for the rest of the nation. It is hypocritical for the public official to admonish and exhort the people to uphold the common good.

For most Americans Friday afternoons are filled with positive anticipation of the weekend. In Washington it's where government officials dump stories they want to bury. Good news gets dropped on Monday so bureaucrats can talk about it all week.

Bad officials are the ones elected by good citizens who do not vote.

The debt-ceiling vote isn't about what will be done in the future it is about the integrity of America's commitment to support the bonds we issue. Elected officials have an obligation to maintain that integrity regardless of whether they voted for the programs that required the borrowing in the first place.

More is required of public officials than slogans and handshakes and press releases. More is required. We must hold ourselves strictly accountable. We must provide the people with a vision of the future.

We who officially value freedom of speech above life itself seem to have nothing to talk about but the weather.

We don't have an Official Secrets Act in the United States as other countries do. Under the First Amendment freedom of the press freedom of speech and freedom of association are more important than protecting secrets.

The freedom to criticize judges and other public officials is necessary to a vibrant democracy. The problem comes when healthy criticism is replaced with more destructive intimidation and sanctions.

I am but one member of a vast team made up of many organizations officials thousands of scientists and millions of farmers - mostly small and humble - who for many years have been fighting a quiet oftentimes losing war on the food production front.

I also meet with city officials representatives from governors' offices really anyone in that sort of position who has shown an interest in youth fitness to let them know why this sort of program is so important. I give the same message when I speak at conferences.

I worked with a group of people who argued day and night - professors officials the Minister of Finance - but there were decisions that I had to make.

I'm officially near-famous. If you've got four year old kids and you've got cable then you've got no choice but to know who I am. But if you're one of my peers - a 26-year old guy who lives in Manhattan - you have no idea who I am. I'm only famous if you're four.

And so today if the state can no longer appeal to the old moral principles that belong to the Christian tradition it will be forced to create a new official faith and new moral principles which will be binding on its citizens.

For the record I believe elected officials should talk about faith. Our founders believed the moral principles of faith were indispensable to our nation's survival. The Declaration of Independence mentions God four times.

The balance between faith and reason is for the determination of each individual and of the people as a whole not of unauthorized government officials uttering impious humbug as they arbitrarily try to define that balance.

Even the striving for equality by means of a directed economy can result only in an officially enforced inequality - an authoritarian determination of the status of each individual in the new hierarchical order.

Official education was telling people almost nothing of the nature of all those things on the seashores and in the redwood forests in the deserts and in the plains.

Are you kidding? I'm a terrible cook but John is a really great one. Literally I never cook. The whole time we were dating I prepared two officially romantic meals. Both of them were such disasters that he begs me never to go into the kitchen again.

Significant officials at publicly traded companies are casually and cavalierly engaged in insider trading. Because insider trading has as one of its elements communication it doesn't take rocket science to realize it's nice to have the communication on tape.

I'm not a party animal I took my job as Miss USA very seriously... Sometimes of course I want to let it all go. Even though I'm a beauty queen you're also an unofficial ambassador and there's a lot of pressure.