40 quotes
I believe that the pursuit of truth and right ideas through honest debate and rigorous argument is a noble undertaking.
A note to readers (2018)
Science has everything to say about what is possible. Science has nothing to say about what is permissible.
The new Detroit churning out Schumer-mobiles will make the steel mills of the Soviet Union look the model of efficiency.
When under attack, no country is obligated to collect permission slips from allies to strike back.
We no longer have to search for a name for the post-Cold War era. It will henceforth be known as the age of terrorism.
Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics (2013)
Fairness through leveling is the essence of Obamaism.
A gaffe in Washington is when a politician inadvertently reveals the truth, especially about himself.
Donald Trump and the fitness threshold (2016)
Affluent enviros are all for wind farms, until one is proposed that might mar the serenity of a sail from the crew-necked precincts near Nantucket Sound. Then it's clean energy for thee, not for me.
The joy of losing consists in this: Where there are no expectations, there is no disappointment.
The joys of losing (2010)
In explaining any puzzling Washington phenomenon, always choose stupidity over conspiracy, incompetence over cunning. Anything else gives them too much credit.
There is no comparing the brutality and cynicism of today’s pop culture with that of forty years ago: from High Noon to Robocop is a long descent.
Obsession with self is the motif of our time.
Nixon on the Couch (1999)
To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.
Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics (2013)
If Obama has his way, the change that is coming is a new America: "fair," leveled and social democratic. Obama didn't get elected to warranty your muffler. He's here to warranty your life.
The free lunch is the essence of modern liberalism.
Obamacare laid bare (2013)
With our financial house on fire, Obama makes clear both in in his speech and his budget that the essence of his presidency will be the transformation of health care, education and energy.
The Muslim population in America is not much fundamentalist, nor radicalized. Rather, it accepts American religious pluralism and lives, like other religions, in a quite harmonious and pluralistic way.
Highfalutin moral principles are impossible guides to foreign policy. At worst, they reflect hypocrisy; at best, extreme naivete.
It is an old liberal theme that conservative ideas, being red in tooth and claw, cannot possibly emerge from any notion of the public good.
The great peasant revolt of 2010 (2010)
I was a Great Society liberal on domestic issues. People ask me, 'How do you go from Walter Mondale to Fox News?' The answer is, 'I was young once.' End of answer.