William Kristol
[Among conservatives] there's been too much pseudo-populism, almost too much concern and attention for, quote, 'the people'.... After all, we conservatives are on the side of the lords and barons.... We...are pulling up the drawbridge against the peasants.Collection: People
If we free the people of Iraq, we will be respected in the Arab world... and I think we will be respected around the world.Collection: Thinking
Barack Obama is not going to beat Hillary Clinton in a single Democratic primary. I’ll predict that right now.Collection: Clinton
[the war in Iraq] "could have terrifically good effects troughout the Middle EastCollection: War
White women are a problem, that's, you know - we all live with that.Collection: Women
Having defeated and then occupied Iraq, democratizing the country should not be too tall an order for the world's sole superpower.Collection: Country
We can remove Saddam because that could start a chain reaction in the Arab world that would be very healthy.Collection: Healthy
Whenever I hear anything described as a heartless assault on our children, I tend to think it’s a good idea.Collection: Children
American power should be used not just in the defense of American interests but for the promotion of American principles.Collection: Defense
The liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures.Collection: Powerful
I've always rebelled a little when people say, 'My Jewish values lead me to really care about the poor.' I know some Christians who care about the poor, too.Collection: Christian
Republicans can also point to an alternate path. They can draw upon genuine experts to explain what should be done.Collection: Path
And on this issue of the Shia in Iraq, I think there's been a certain amount of, frankly, Terry, a kind of pop sociology in America that, you know, somehow the Shia can't get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There's almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq's always been very secular.Collection: Islamic
I mean, obviously, one of the strongest arguments against evolution and selection of the fittest and progress, which is part of evolution, is the current field of the presidential candidates. We started off with Washington and Adams and Jefferson and then we had Lincoln, and now we moved ahead and look where we are now.Collection: Mean
Iraq's always been very secular.Collection: Iraq
That's always been the case in America; there's been a big spectrum in how much people are interested in American politics.Collection: America
The media claimed to be non-partisan, centrist. It's not been that way for a lot of history.Collection: Media
There's a sort of romanticizing of the past. When you actually think about the past, you know it's a little different.Collection: Past
Tax credits instead of a huge bureaucracy. This is the question for me.Collection: Credit
Yuppies don't have loyalty. They have useful relationships and meaningful encounters.Collection: Loyalty
I don't think [Mitt] Romney can sit there and wait to win because perhaps people are disappointed with President [Barack] Obama.Collection: Winning
These soldiers deserve a better defense secretary than the one we have.Collection: Soldier
The most devastating indictment of the president's proposal is that it threatens to destroy virtually everything about American health care that's worth preserving. Under the plan's layers of regulation and oversight, even seeing a doctor whenever you like will be no easy matter: access to physicians will be carefully regulated by gatekeepers; referrals to specialists will be strongly discouraged; second opinions will be almost unheard of; and the availability of new drugs will be limited.Collection: Availability
Recalling that a good chunk of the 47 percent who don't pay income taxes are Romney supporters - especially of course seniors (who might well 'believe they are entitled to heath care,' a position Romney agrees with), as well as many lower-income Americans (including men and women serving in the military) who think conservative policies are better for the country even if they're not getting a tax cut under the Romney plan. So Romney seems to have contempt not just for the Democrats who oppose him, but for tens of millions who intend to vote for him.Collection: Senior
Leo Strauss's discoveries in the history of political philosophy had the effect of liberating his students from the yoke of contemporary thought.Collection: Philosophy
Mitt Romney has to convince the American public that they need to do something they're not usually inclined to do - replace a sitting president with a challenger. And unlike in 1980 and 1992, when the public was persuaded to do just that, the incumbent president has not been weakened by a primary opponent.Collection: President
[I]t's up to Republicans to expose the bureaucracies and criticize the orthodoxies - to ask why visas for travel to the United States are still being issued in West Africa and why American military forces are being deployed there without a workable plan or intelligible purpose, why CDC spending priorities are so skewed and CDC management so weak, and why here at home routine police powers aren't being used and routine public health measures aren't being implemented.Collection: Military
He should release the tax returns tomorrow. It's crazy. You've got to release six, eight, ten years back tax returns. Take the hit for a day or two. He has to give a big speech in defense of capitalism, and that will elevate, I think, this race above this tactical back and forth, which I do think he's on the margin of losing.Collection: Crazy
The trouble with politics and political coverage today is that there's too much liberal bias.... There's too much tilt toward the left-wing agenda. Too much apology for liberal policy failures. Too much pandering to liberal candidates and causes.Collection: Apology
I'm disappointed, depressed, and demoralized. [...] It is very hard to avoid the conclusion that President Bush flinched from a fight on constitutional philosophy. Miers is undoubtedly a decent and competent person. But her selection will unavoidably be judged as reflecting a combination of cronyism and capitulation on the part of the president.Collection: Philosophy
Going from three TV channels to broadcast TV to cable to talk radio; obviously the online explosion has changed things.Collection: Three
Frankly, if you're 26 years old and there's a war on women or there's not a war on women, you can get all wrapped up in it and get lots of traffic on your website and get into exchanges and scream and yell about it on MSNBC or Fox, and a week later no one can remember what that was about.Collection: War
I think there was a moment in the middle part of the century into the 60s, 70s when at least elite journalism claimed to be non-partisan. You can go back and look at it and wonder about how non-partisan it was.Collection: Thinking
I still would say generally that more people have access [to] and take advantage of more diversity of opinion than was once .Collection: People
For all the talk about the bitterness and the partisanship in American politics, is it really that bitter and partisan? Think of American history. Think of Joseph McCarthy. Think of the New Left. Think of [George] McGovern. Think of [Ronald] Reagan. Think of George Wallace. We've had an awful lot of real extremism on both wings.Collection: Real
I'm happy to have interns at The Weekly Standard and happy to have readers of The Weekly Standard, but if you all tell me that you were busy reading Plato and [Lev] Tolstoy and playing violin in the orchestra, I'd say that was great. I wouldn't tell you to take time out from that to get involved in political journalism.Collection: Plato
I like [ Rick] Santorum personally and respect him, but you wouldn't say that he was really that strong of an opponent. At the end of the day it wasn't like [Ronald] Reagan running against [George] Bush, or [George W.] Bush against [John] McCain, even. It's sort of surprising that Romney had as much trouble as he did, and I think it shows a weakness in appeal to those voters.Collection: Running
If you look at the polls - the conservatives are fine.I think there will be a fair amount of enthusiasm, or at least motivation. They very much want to remove President [Barack] Obama.Collection: Motivation
At the end of the day,[Mitt] Romney was pro-life, but [Rick] Santorum was more fervently pro-life, and had been for longer. They're all going to repeal Obamacare, but Romney has once endorsed something like it. In the old days, there really were differences on fundamental issues, even on foreign policy, [for which] [Newt] Gingrich, Romney, and Santorum were pretty similar.Collection: Obamacare
Fox gets two million viewers a night, and MSNBC gets one. It's four million people, five million people, and 130 million people are going to vote. There are an awful lot of voters, and an awful lot of politically engaged, intelligent people who are not hanging on whatever happens on Bill O'Reilly or Rachel Maddow.Collection: Intelligent
Some journalists just get too wrapped up in daily news cycles and tempests in a teapot that are not going to make any difference. As someone who is older and has been through a few election cycles, maybe this is just being an old fogey, but I think I know what's going to really matter and what's not.Collection: Thinking
In any case, open-seat presidential elections like 2008 just are different in character from incumbent reelects, and I think that's the most important thing about this election - is that once there's an incumbent running for reelection, most of the debate is about, "Has he [Barack Obama] done a good job?" Most of the judgment is, "Do you want to keep him or do you want to replace him?" Now, the opponent has to also be acceptable and has to make his own case.Collection: Running
I think reading intelligent expressions of different points of view is a good thing, and there is a way in which being in academia in a classroom at the University probably gives you, can give you an academic view of things, and reading actual real time debates about what should we do in Syria or the Buffett rule, budget issues...gives you a kind of sense that's hard to get in a classroom.Collection: Real
Obviously I think politics is interesting and important and educational.Collection: Educational
Actually, not because of anyone's intention but just because of some sociological and some other things that have happened over 25, 30 years, the parties have sorted themselves out much more ideologically, which has some benefits and some costs.Collection: Party
People used to complain in the 50s and 60s and even in the 70s when I was in school, studying political science, that "if only we could have two political parties that presented a choice, but there were all these liberal Republicans and there were all these southern Democrats who are conservative so people just don't have a clear choice."Collection: Party
Of course there are different forms of conservatism. I would say just analytically that the Republican Party is more thoroughly conservative and the Democratic Party is more thoroughly liberal today than has been the case for most of modern history.Collection: Party
First of all, legally, it's hard to do these things[ get rid of ObamaCare]. Donald Trump needs a lot of competent people.Collection: Obamacare
If President [Barack] Obama - President [Donald] Trump shows up with a, you know, cleaver and just says, I can get rid of all these regulations, I can get rid of ObamaCare, no problem at all, then that would be a mistake.Collection: Mistake
The repealing and replacing of Obamacare is very complicated. It is what a White House and congressional leadership, serious White House and serious congressional leadership, should meet on and work on and figure out a strategy of, and it may work and it may not. Obviously not every administration gets things through, even when they have much larger majorities in congress and a much larger popular vote than Donald Trump had.Collection: Obamacare