You can have many different selection systems, but the bottom line has to be a system that, once the judge takes office that judge will feel that he or she is to decide the case without reference to the popular thing or the popular will of the moment.

Independence doesn't mean you decide the way you want.

To threaten the institution is to threaten fair administration of justice and protection of liberty.

But once the person is selected, at that point that person is independent.

I thought that that was an effort to inject a popular element, a democratic element into the selection of a person who, once he is selected and confirmed, is beyond electoral control.

And the problem is once you get into this campaign business and begin to have a lot of money, then the person on the bench begins to think - what's going to happen if I decide the case this way or that way?

Judges are appointed often through the political process.

It doesn't help to fight crime to put people in prison who are innocent.

Independence means you decide according to the law and the facts.

I mean those people who are interested in good government will certainly contribute in order to make certain there's some counter-balance to those whose interests in good government is less.

I think it shows that if you have one group of people doing it, you'll get another group of people doing it.

And in that confirmation process, I sat for 17 hours in front of a senate judiciary committee.

Well, just that there would be somebody in the office and the voters - it was more or less an understanding in the entire community, as long as that person was doing a good job on the merits, nobody was going to run against him.

We can speak about the institution, but ultimately the bar is the group that both is in touch with the public on the one hand and understands the judicial institution on the other.

At least there's a political input, but when you put on the robe, at that point the politics is over.

Ultimately, the question of campaign contributions will be decided by the public.

You will read in the newspaper more often about federal courts, but the law that affects people, the trials that affect human beings are by and large in the state courts.

Nobody wants a judge to be subject to the political whim of the moment.

Every citizen has to figure out what kind of government he or she wants.

There are loads of countries that have nice written constitutions like ours. But there aren't loads of countries where they're followed.

It's important to every American that the law protect his or her basic liberty.

You can have many different selection systems, but the bottom line has to be a system that, once the judge takes office that judge will feel that he or she is to decide the case without reference to the popular thing or the popular will of the moment.

People have to be educated and they have to stick to it. If people lose that respect, an awful lot is lost.

We are selected, but I grew up in California and in San Francisco and there was a system of electing judges.

By Rice's own standards, the war was well underway by the time he took office. He was a war president the moment he took the oath. But did he act like one?

Well, I think that those of us in public life that are trying to do a good job, and that are faced with this popular new game that the media has of being critical of everything that anybody in public office does probably are thin-skinned.

It was also during my tenure of office that the Japanese Government agreed to the conclusion of a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and signed it, pursuing a policy in harmony with the avowed desire of the people.

Since I'm allergic to various things, the army wouldn't accept me during the war, and I got into the Office of War Information, which sent music to Europe.

Don't try to be somebody you're not because it doesn't work. If you try to be this perfect person or perfect persona of what you think that somebody should be when they're involved in public office, it's just not going to work. Just be yourself, stay true to your core values, and really just stay abreast of the issues.

From my very first day in the Mayor's office, I have worked closely with the Council members who share our vision of a city hall that really protects taxpayers and cares... yes... about the little things that make a big difference in people's lives.

That the apostolic office is temporary, is a plain historical fact.

No man should have a political office because he wants a job.

The thing I enjoyed most were visits from children. They did not want public office.

The right way to reign in healthcare costs is not by applying more government and more controls and making it more like the post office, it's by making it more like a consumer-driven market.

The British soldier can stand up to anything except the British War Office.

You get elected, often, if you're a woman, on the strength of the women's vote; then you get into office, and you have to adapt to an overwhelmingly male environment.

I couldn't sleep one night and I was sitting in my office and I realized that I was an independent filmmaker.

Laboring men can perform for themselves the office of becoming their own employers.

If you win the Oscar, you get to go into just about anybody's office for a month.

Things on the whole are much faster in America; people don't 'stand for election', they 'run for office.'

For the past several years, the Meth Caucus has worked to engage the Office of National Drug Control Policy on this issue. We have tried to get their attention that meth requires a strong, comprehensive Federal policy.

In the discharge of the duties of this office, there is one rule of action more important than all others. It consists in never doing anything that someone else can do for you.

He who uses the office he owes to the voters wrongfully and against them is a thief.

I wonder if that's hurt me at the box office. Maybe audiences these days want to know exactly what to expect when they go into a movie, and my movies are hard to explain in just one way.

I will undoubtedly have to seek what is happily known as gainful employment, which I am glad to say does not describe holding public office.

Well, you know I have an office, my film offices. So I know that syndrome. I fancy offices, so there must be something wrong with me. Even the window cleaner intrigues me. It's a very sexy environment.

My father had not even completed high school when he started as an office boy working for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, and I am not sure that my mother completed high school.

In the Astronaut Office we're never totally out of training, we always keep our hand in it. But after five years, things have changed and so it's been good to get back into the flow and relearn a lot of things.

Since President Bush took office in 2001, this Congress has supported an agenda of democracy, freedom and expansion of rights for all peoples throughout the world.