* “Americans are strikingly fatalistic about their prospects. The can-do country is convinced that it can’t.”–Indian-born Fareed Zakaria, CNN.
* “There is a risk over time of developing a cadre of military leaders that politically, culturally and geographically have less and less in common with the people they have sworn to defend.”–Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
* “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”–Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.
* “Undeterred by the fact that George W. Bush is the only Republican since Dwight Eisenhower to win in his first try for the presidency, (Minnesota Gov. Tim) Pawlenty has dutifully enriched his resume for national office by visiting Iraq five times and Afghanistan three times. And Iowa six times this year.”–George Will, Washington Post.
* “My own personal worst campaign moment came at the New York gubernatorial debate, when the lights went up to reveal seven contenders vying for the right to lead the state, one of whom was famous only for her claim to be the madam who supplied Eliot Spitzer with prostitutes.”–Gail Collins, New York Times.
* “A dysfunctional political system is one that knows the right answers but can’t even discuss them rationally, let alone act on them, and one that devotes vastly more attention to cable TV preachers than to recommendations by its best scientists and engineers.”–Thomas Friedman, New York Times.
* “Marco Rubio will be the next senator from Florida. Susana Martinez probably will be New Mexico’s next governor. If so, the two freshest Hispanic faces in national politics will be potential Republican vice presidential nominees.”–George Will, Washington Post.
* “Probably no one is completely objective. People do have opinions. But I think it’s entirely possible to make every effort to not let your opinions bleed into what you write.”–Rick Edmonds, media business analyst at the Poynter Institute.
* “George LeMieux is a Mount Everest of ambition shoehorned into a molehill of a man.”–Republican strategist J.M. “Mac” Stipanovich.
* “Justice prevailed because it was the will of the people.”–Brian Blair on the appeals court’s decision to put Jim Norman back on the state Senate ballot.