No one is being arbitrarily held based on just suspicion or emotion but based on evidence and a legal process.

Some of these people are going to be held maybe for the rest of their life, but it will be based on our values, not theirs.

Do you believe we are at war?

I think you would be very qualified for your job.

So America needs to get ready for this proposition that some people are going to be detained as enemy combatants, not criminals.

You cannot detain someone indefinitely under criminal law. They have to have a trial.

Under law of armed conflict, as I understand it, and under the Geneva Convention, Article 5 says that if there is a dispute about status, what you are entitled to is an independent, neutral decisionmaker.

The battlefield--there are physical battlefields, certainly, in Afghanistan, but there are battlefields, potentially, you know, in our Nation.

There is a physical high ground in traditional war, but in this war there is the moral high ground.

It has to have substantial due process.

OK. Let me read from Mr. Holder here. Would you consider him your boss?

It is probably easier to get $1 trillion out of Congress than it is to get any good policy out of Congress.

I appreciate you being here today. On a day when we passed a $1 trillion stimulus and you announced another $1 or $2 trillion for a financial bailout, the stock market is down nearly 400 points.

Sure, part of this compromise does violence. But I don't -- what's wrong with funding Head Start? And, so, what's wrong with funding higher education?

If it stays the way it is, then it's all a little bit more challenging for us.

I personally have a lot of confidence in the men and women who administer justice in our military.

One of the ideas that I have is that it is important for us to let the world know that if someone is detained in a prison, wherever you may locate it, it is not an arbitrary decision.

We need to preserve that and not overly politicize it.