How is your worldview different from the president's?

Well, I think in some ways his way of dealing with problems is to deal with the symptoms. Iraq and Saddam Hussein are a serious threat and he wants to address that threat. And when required to deal with what I believe is a crisis in North Korea, he deals with that.

But his overall view of the role of America in the world is very different than mine. He tends toward unilateralism. And that creates a perception around the world that America exerts its power solely so it can continue to exert its power. My view is that we should maintain our political and military strength so that we remain the superpower of the world, but we should use it to lead. And we should lead on things that we as a nation care about -- like human rights, and democracy.

You know, the Europeans don't ask much from us. They just want us to consult with them. They understand that at the end of the day we're going to do what's in America's interests. But to not consult with them is foolish. We need to do a lot of other things, too. We need to show that we care about what happens in post-Saddam Iraq. Look at what happened in Afghanistan after we got rid of the Taliban. We've done very little to stabilize the country to ensure that President Karzai can be successful. We haven't done enough to work on the peace process in Israel; we didn't sustain the progress that had been made there. There's the AIDS crisis in sub-Saharan Africa. All these things send signals about American strength and our interest in whether we care about peace and prosperity in the rest of the world.

At the core -- even if all we care about is making sure that the American people are safe -- our interest in the long term is to have the rest of the world not hostile to America, but have the rest of the world look up to and respect America.

The big news of the weekend was Gov. George Ryan of Illinois commuting the sentences of all death row inmates, saying he was not confident that the judicial system was protecting innocent people from being executed. You're a supporter of the death penalty, and someone who spent your career working in the judicial system. What do you think of what Ryan did?

I think what Gov. Ryan is addressing is that we don't want to execute innocent people. I think his decision is a reflection of his belief in the judicial system of Illinois.

We need to do significantly more than we're doing now to make sure that the system works effectively. And that includes having well-paid, highly competent defense counsel. You know, I've never done it myself, but I've had partners in my law firm do death penalty trials and it is a very difficult thing. It requires enormous skill and perseverance. And we ought to take advantage of new technology, like DNA technology, to make sure that we're doing all we can to ensure that the system works. But at the end of the day, I believe there are some crimes that deserve the ultimate punishment.

But since we're not doing all those things, and since in recent years 13 inmates on Illinois' death row had their convictions overturned, doesn't that give you pause as to whether the system is currently effective? Shouldn't there be some sort of moratorium at least?

Are you asking me if I support a national moratorium?

OK, yes.

I do not support a national moratorium.

But given the discovery of innocent people on death row, wouldn't a moratorium make sense?

I have faith that the system can work if we do the things that need to be done. You know, we could spend the next hour talking about this subject -- how we need to make the administration of the death penalty fairer and more evenhanded, for instance; there are race issues and multiple other issues about the judicial system as a whole. And it all deserves a serious look to make sure we're using the best technology and system that we can. But I don't favor a national moratorium.

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