No wonder Americans hate politics, when year in, year out, they hear politicians make promises that won't come true because they don't even mean them.

I ask that all Americans demonstrate in their personal and public lives...the high ethical standards that are essential to good character and to the continued success of our nation.

I've been in politics long enough to expect criticism and hostility. But I was unprepared for the hatred I get from Christians. Why do Christians hate so much?

In our shock and grief one thing must remain clear, hate and prejudice are not American values. The public outrage in Laramie and all across America today echoes what we heard at the White House Conference on Hate Crimes last year -- there is something we can do about this, Congress needs to pass our tough Hate Crimes Legislation. It can do so even before it adjourns and it should do so.

In other words, our constitution was designed by people who were idealistic but not ideological. There's a big difference. You can have a philosophy that tends to be liberal or conservative but still be open to evidence, experience, and argument. That enables people with honest differences to find practical, principled compromise. On the other hand, fervent insistence on an ideology makes evidence, experience, and arguments irrelevant: If you possess the absolute truth, those who disagree are by definition wrong, and evidence of success or failure is irrelevant. There is nothing to learn from the experience of other countries. Respectful arguments are a waste of time. Compromise is weakness. And if your policies fail, you don't abandon them; instead, you double down, asserting that they would have worked if only they had been carried to their logical extreme.

Politics is not religion and we should govern on the basis of evidence, not theology.