* “We’re a super power, we don’t fight on our territory, but that means you are in somebody else’s stadium, playing by somebody else’s ground rules, and you have to understand the environment, the history, the politics of the country you wish to intervene in.”–Ryan C. Crocker, veteran government Arabist and departing ambassador to Afghanistan.
* “When it comes to foreign policy, what is said on the campaign trail sometimes bears only a faint resemblance to what happens in the Situation Room.”–Peter Baker, New York Times.
*Our baseline view is that after the November elections, policy makers will come to an agreement preventing the U.S. economy from falling off that (fiscal) cliff. We believe Republican and Democratic policy makers do agree on some key issues.”–Bill Stone, chief investment strategist at PNC Wealth Management, on the January deadline for an accommodation on automatic spending cuts and expiring Bush tax cuts.
* “Technology is making campaigns dumber. BlackBerrys and iPhones mean that campaigns can respond to their opponents minute by minute and hour by hour. The campaigns get lost in tit-for-tat minutiae that nobody outside the bubble cares about. Meanwhile, use of the Internet means that Web videos overshadow candidate speeches and appearances. Video replaces verbal. Tactics eclipse vision.”–David Brooks, New York Times.
* “In the end, the strongest case against Bain capitalism is a metaphor: Mitt Romney made a fortune swapping equity for debt. That’s what we’ve done for the past 30 years in this country, turning a great many of our assets into deficits for short-term gain. We need to do the opposite now.”–Joe Klein, Time magazine.
* “This will get attention as perhaps the most interesting government contract written anywhere in the world this year.”–Jeffrey B. Liebman, professor of public policy at Harvard, after New York City agreed to let Goldman Sachs invest nearly $10 million in a jail program (“social impact bonds”), with GS profiting if the program significantly reduced recidivism rates.
* “There’s no evidence from anywhere on earth or any time in human history that shows that but for discrimination, there would be proportional representation and an absence of gross statistical disparities, by race, sex, height or any other human characteristic. Nonetheless, much of our thinking, legislation and public policy is based upon proportionality being the norm.”–Walter Williams, professor of economics at George Mason University.
* “Football is entertainment in which the audience is expected to delight in gladiatorial action that a growing portion of the audience knows may cause the players degenerative brain disease. Not even football fans, a tribe not known for savoring nuance, can forever block that fact from their excited brains.”–George Will, Washington Post.
* “Incredibly, the show is a big hit in China. I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t know they got HBO in China. … What they can’t get over, when they see the show, is a free press.”–Aaron Sorkin, creator of HBO’s The Newsroom.
* “I stayed up late one night last week worrying about how we’re going to get accredited, … thinking about the blank slate, thinking about how fast we’re going to have to find leadership. I’m excited.”–Sandra Featherman, Florida Poly Board of Trustees member.
* “It’s the RNC. It’s the biggest event ever. And there’s definitely bound to be some discomfort with that. But that’s the way it is.”–Sue Chrzan, Tampa Hillsborough County Expressway Authority spokeswoman.
* “Not a second can be lost in forging new alliances and exploiting every conceivable tactical opportunity to make the life sciences the foundation of our region’s economic recovery.”–Hillsborough County Commissioner Mark Sharpe.