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Mr. President, three years ago you argued that an invasion of Iraq would create a new stage of Arab, Israeli peace. And today there is an Iraqi Prime Minister who has been sharply critical of Israel. Arab governments, despite your arguments, who first criticized Hezbollah have now changed their tune. Now they are sharply critical of Israel. And despite from both of you, warnings to Syria and Iran to back off support from Hezbollah, effectively Mr. President, your words are being ignored. So, what has happened to America's clout in this region that you've commited yourself to transforming?

Uh, David...it's an interesting period, ummm, because, ummmm, instead of having foreign policies based upon trying to create a sense of stability, we have a foreign policy that addresses the root causes of violence and instability. Ummm, (shrug) for awhile, American foreign policy was just, "let's hope everything is calm." A managed calm. But beneath the surface brewed a lot resentment and anger that was manifested in its, uh, on September the eleventh. And so, we have taken a foreign policy that says, on the one hand we will protect ourselves from further attack in the short run by being aggressive and chasing down the killers and bringing 'em to justice. Make no mistake, they're still out there. And they would like to harm our respective peoples because of what we stand for. The longterm to defeat this ideology, and they're bound by an ideology, you defeat it with a more hopeful ideology called freedom.

Look, I fully understand that some people don't believe it's possible for freedom and democracy to overcome this ideology of hatred. I understand that. I just happen to believe it is possible and I believe it will happen. And so what you're seeing is, a clash of governing styles for example, you know, the, the, the, notion of democracy beginning to emerge scares the ideo, ideologues, the totalitarians, those that who want to impose their vision. It just frightens them and so they respond. They've always been violent. Now I hear this amazing kind of, uh, editorial thought that says all of a sudden, Hezbollah's become violent because we're promoting democracy? They have been violent for a long period of time. Or Hamas? One reason why the Palestinians suffer is because there are militants who refuse to accept a Palestinian state based upon democratic principles. And so what the world is seeing is a desire by this country and our allies to defeat the ideology of hate with an ideology that has worked. And that brings hope. And one of the challenges of course is to convince people that you know, that Muslims would like to be free.

You know, that there's other people other than people in Britain and America that would like to be free in the world. There's this, kind of, almost, a weird kind of elitism that says maybe, maybe certain people in certain parts of the world shouldn't be free. Maybe it's best just to let them sit in these tyranical societies and our foreign policy rejects that concept. We don't accept it. And so we're working and uh, this is, I said the other day after these attacks took place. I said this should be a moment of clarity for people to see the stakes in the twenty-first century. I mean, now there's an unprovoked attack on a democracy. Why? I happen to believe because progress is being made toward democracies. And I believe that, I also believe that Iran would like to exert additional influence in the region. A theocracy would like to spread its influence. Using surrogates. And so I am as determined as ever to continue fostering a foreign policy based upon liberty. And I think it's going to work. Unless we lose our nerve. And this government isn't going to quit.

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Lance Bass, band member of ’N Sync, says he’s gay and in a “very stable” relationship with a reality show star.

Bass, who formed ’N Sync with Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, Joey Fatone and Chris Kirkpatrick, tells People magazine that he didn’t earlier disclose his sexuality because he didn’t want to affect the group’s popularity. “I knew that I was in this popular band and I had four other guys’ careers in my hand, and I knew that if I ever acted on it or even said (that I was gay), it would overpower everything,” he tells the magazine.

The Washington Supreme Court today upheld the state's 1998 ban on same-sex marriage — a ruling decried by gay activists but heralded by supporters of traditional marriage.

The 5-to-4 decision came as a sobering defeat for gays and their advocates, who'd hoped the court would strike down the so-named Defense of Marriage Act — DOMA — which restricts marriage to one man and one woman.

Had the court struck down the law, Washington would have become only the second state in the nation, after Massachussets, to allow same-sex couples to marry.