Ambassador Joseph Wilson:

"We Americans all too often take for granted the luxury of living and benefiting from the rights and freedoms guaranteed by our constitution. Several actions undertaken by this administration serve as a reminder that the social contract that binds us is fragile and requires our vigorous protection if we ever hope to preserve it. We have known this since the time of the drafting of the constitution over two hundred years ago when Benjamin Franklin remarked that the founding fathers had bequeathed to the nation 'a republic, if you can keep it'."