“Evidently, he [Osama bin Laden] doesn’t understand that a game of ‘Historical Grievances’ can cut two ways.”

The Mackenzie Newsletter #55 (January 2004)

"a mind, as H.G. Wells observed of the President [Franklin Roosevelt], 'appallingly open,' open indeed at both ends, through which all sorts of half-baked ideas flow…"

John T. Flynn, Country Squire in the White House, excerpted in S.I. Hayakawa Language in Thought and Action

"What President Bush will need is an agenda that catches fire without blowing up."

National Review Dec. 18, 2000 [if the comment had a specified author I failed to write it down]

"No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it."

Theodore Roosevelt (when he was New York City Police Commissioner)

"In his 1906 Recollections of 13 Presidents, John Sergeant Wise, who had met Pierce, tells of the reaction of a lifelong acquaintance of Pierce’s when he learned the man had won the presidency. ‘Now Frank’s a good fellow, I admit,’ the elderly man said, ‘and I wish him well. He made a good state’s attorney, thar’s no doubt about that, and he made a far judge, thar’s no denying that, and nobody kain’t complain of him as a congressman. But when it comes to the whole Yewnited States, I dew say that in my jedgement Frank Pierce is agoin’ to spread durned thin.'"

Cynthia Crossen in James Taranto and Leonard Leo, eds., Presidential Leadership