I gotta get going

He nodded. “You’ve got a bright future,” he said. “Very bright. But I’ve been in thistown awhile and, let me tell you, it can be tough. When you get a lot of attention likeyou’ve been getting, people start gunnin’ for ya. And it won’t necessarily just becoming from my side, you understand. From yours, too. Everybody’ll be waiting foryou to slip, know what I mean? So watch yourself.” 　　“Thanks for the advice, Mr. President.” 　　“All right. I gotta get going. You know, me and you got something in common.” 　　“What’s that?” 　　“We both had to debate Alan Keyes. That guy’s a piece of work, isn’t he?” 　　I laughed, and as we walked to the door I told him a few stories from the campaign. Itwasn’t until he had left the room that I realized I had briefly put my arm over hisshoulder as we talked—an unconscious habit of mine, but one that I suspected mighthave made many of my friends, not to mention the Secret Service agents in the room,more than a little uneasy. 　　SINCE MY ARRIVAL in the Senate, I’ve been a steady and occasionally fierce criticof Bush Administration policies. I consider the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to be bothfiscally irresponsible and morally troubling. I have criticized the Administration forlacking a meaningful health-care agenda, a serious energy policy, or a strategy formaking America more competitive. Back in 2002, just before announcing my Senatecampaign, I made a speech at one of the first antiwar rallies in Chicago in which Iquestioned the Administration’s evidence of weapons of mass destruction and suggestedthat an invasion of Iraq would prove to be a costly error. Nothing in the recent newscoming out of Baghdad or the rest of the Middle East has dispelled these views. 　　So Democratic audiences are often surprised when I tell them that I don’t considerGeorge Bush a bad man, and that I assume he and members of his Administration aretrying to do what they think is best for the country.