* “The two countries (Israel and Turkey) have gone through remarkably similar political shifts in recent decades from aggressively secular societies run by Westernized elites to populist ethno-religious states where standing up to foreigners offers rich political rewards.”–Ethan Bronner, New York Times.
* “The lessons of the big wars are obvious. The cost in blood and treasure is immense, and the outcome is unforeseeable. Public support at home is declining toward rock bottom. And the people you’ve come to liberate come to resent your presence.”–Micah Zenko, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, in
referencing the value of drone strikes in the battle against terrorist networks.
* “Pakistan’s military look on militant groups as a hedge against India and as proxies who could control Afghanistan after the Americans left.”–Trudy Rubin, Philadelphia Inquirer.
* “You want to be commander in chief? You can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States, even when it’s not politically convenient.”–President Barack Obama criticizing GOP presidential candidates for staying silent when the crowd at the Orlando debate booed a gay soldier who asked a question via videotape.
* “One of the underappreciated truths about Obama is that he isn’t all that interested in public policy… . He was content to leave the details of the stimulus package to congressional appropriators and the details of Obamacare to the deal-cutters squeezing out the last few votes in Nancy Pelosi’s office. The result is laws that don’t work nearly as well as advertised.”–Michael Barone, The Washington Examiner.
* “While the top 1 percent of Americans earned 21 percent of the nation’s income, they owned a staggering 35 percent of the wealth in 2006-07, the most recent year for which statistics are available. We should be taxing that wealth directly, and not merely focusing on million-dollar incomes.”–Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott, Yale law professors and co-authors of “The Stakeholder Society.”
* “The occupational hazard of democracy is know-nothing voters. It shouldn’t be know-nothing candidates.”–Maureen Dowd, New York Times.
* “After three debates in which parts of the country not named Texas have been exposed to him, Perry’s appeal has diminished, and the quality of his
performance has declined. The debates have revealed that Perry is neither consistently conservative to satisfy the Tea Party activists driving the nomination from below, nor sufficiently presidential to mollify the establishment hovering nervously above.”–Margaret Carlson, Bloomberg News.
* “The (Congressional dysfunction) problem in a nutshell is that most members are more worried about their primary election than the general election.”–Former Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va.
* “While I don’t think we’re (Florida) going into a recession, the probability of one is going up.”–UCF economist Sean Snaith.
* “Here in Florida, (Gov.) Scott’s campaign promise of mass job creation is at least coming true for professional urine samplers.”–Carl Hiaasen, The Miami Herald.
* “Some people are going to benefit from the turmoil and other people are going to get hurt by the turmoil.”–University of Florida Athletics Director Jeremy Foley on college football’s ongoing scramble for conference realignments.
* “The whole logic behind how schools are being selected (for conferences) is frightening.”–ESPN football analyst Kirk Herbstreit.