It's with a tremendous amount of sadness and regret that I announce this morning we've lost another one of our great Green Mountain Boys.

Demanding the removal of Secretary Rumsfeld is not going to hasten the dismantling of the worldwide terror network or ensure security of our homeland, nor will it speed the process of turning responsibility for the security of Iraq over to the Iraqi defense forces.

I think the military would benefit by a change in civilian leadership, but I think it's important that we are cautious in how we effect that change. I think ... (Rumsfeld) should be encouraged to retire. I think he has done a number of good things for the military, particularly prior to Iraq, and we have to recognize the whole career of the person and acknowledge what he has done that is good and allow him to have a graceful retirement.

Having Congress or having other people call for him to be fired or call for him to resign would not be productive. That's something really only the president should decide.

I think there are a lot of good ideas there. I think, again, progress has been impeded by the polarization of the issue. And we need to look at some short-term actions that we could take to improve the system, to start helping people have health care be more affordable and accessible, while working on a longer term solution _ which takes time, it takes consensus, it takes not worrying about who gets the credit.

The common denominator is it's really all about people.