* “It is not heroism to fight against your own people.”–Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan commenting on political repression in Syria under President Bashar Assad.
* “Rare is the Arab politician today who would specifically endorse secularism; the word itself in Arabic is virtually a synonym for atheism.”–Anthony Shadid, New York Times Beirut bureau chief.
* “The situation America faces in Afghanistan is similar to the one it faced in Vietnam during the Nixon presidency: a desire to leave and turn over the war to our local allies, combined with the realization that our allies may still lose, and the loss will be viewed as a U.S. defeat anyway.”–Thomas Ricks, Foreign Policy magazine.
* “Is a vote for the Republican Party in 2012 a vote for war?”–Pat Buchanan, Creators Syndicate.
* “Our long-term strength will depend less on our aircraft carriers than on the robustness of our kindergartens, less on financing spy satellites than on financing Pell grants.”–Nicholas Kristof, New York Times.
* “…Ambassadors for not just the Navy, but for the entire American military across this country and around the world. We get way more than our money’s worth for what they do.”–U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus on the value of the Blue Angels flying teams in the context of U.S. defense cuts.
* “The problems that we’ve had since the inception of the credit derivatives market have never been solved in any meaningful way. How many times do we want to live through this?”–Janet Tavakoli, president of Tavakoli Structured Finance.
* “If the government wants to guarantee mortgages for certain low-income people, O.K., but I wouldn’t do much of it. A public agency intervening in the mortgage market in a limited way doesn’t bother me. But if you want to subsidize the mortgage market, do it more directly than hiding it in a quasi-private institution.”–Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul A. Volcker.
* “What I want to do is something to undo what I did.”–Convicted influence-peddler Jack Abramoff on his tell-all memoir, Capitol Punishment.
* “I don’t see how the party that says it’s the party of the family is going to adopt an immigration policy which destroys families which have been here a quarter of a century.”–GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.
* “Why are so many independents and even Democrats who voted for Obama sitting on their hands? Obama owns the bully pulpit of the presidency, and he’s losing to Grover Norquist?”–Thomas Friedman, New York Times.
* “I’ll be surprised if he’s (President Barack Obama) not re-elected.”–Former President Bill Clinton.
* “Movement conservatives have created a box of orthodoxy so small that even the most conservative candidates must engage in undignified contortions just to fit in.”–Michael Gerson, Washington Post.
* “The most efficient health care systems are integrated systems like the VHA; next best are single-payer systems like Medicare; the more privatized the system, the worse it performs.”–Paul Krugman, New York Times.
* “Grover Norquist’s tax pledge isn’t really about policy; it’s a chastity belt Republican politicians wear to show that they haven’t been defiled by the Washington culture.”–David Brooks, New York Times.
* “I don’t think there’s really a plausible case that either of these two justices should feel the need to recuse themselves.”–University of Notre Dame law professor Richard Ganett on speculation that Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Clarence Thomas might recuse themselves from the health care case.
* “The car used to be the signal of adulthood, of freedom. … Now the signal into adulthood for teenagers is the smartphone.”–Sheryl Connelly, Ford Motor Co.’s manager of global consumer trends and futuring.
* “I don’t think it’s easy to hang any label on (U.S. Sen.) Bill Nelson. Liberals call him too conservative, and conservatives call him too liberal.”–Florida Democratic strategist Steve Schale.
* “If Urban Meyer does wind up taking the Ohio State job, then that man is a miracle worker … because in just one year he has cured himself of a serious stress-related illness and watched all of his kids grow up.”–Israel Gutierrez, Miami Herald.
* “We’re not going to allow what’s happening in other cities to happen here. If one tent goes up, another one will.”–Tampa Police Department spokeswoman Andrea Davis.