"The most important lesson I've learned is that you can't change Washington from the inside," Barack Obama said in an interview Thursday on the Spanish-language Univision network. "You can only change it from the outside."

While most Americans spent this weekend doing some last-minute Christmas shopping, the Senate spent Saturday and Sunday debating and voting on amendments to the START treaty, the DREAM Act and the repeal of the Defense Department's “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

"The success of a party means little except when the nation is using that party for a large and definite purpose," said Woodrow Wilson in his first inaugural. "No one can mistake the purpose for which the nation now seeks to use the Democratic Party."