Jon Meacham Quotes & Sayings (Page 7)

“Incumbent White House parties have won 10 of the last 18 presidential elections; the odds are tight, but they favor Obama in 2012. And so gloomy Democrats, check your despair; gleeful Republicans, watch the hubris.”

“The lesson of the Clinton years and of Obama's win of both the nomination and the general election in 2008 is that Democrats need to be as tough as JFK was.”

“As crucial as religion has been and is to the life of the nation, America's unifying force has never been a specific faith, but a commitment to freedom - not least freedom of conscience.”

“While we remain a nation decisively shaped by religious faith, our politics and our culture are, in the main, less influenced by movements and arguments of an explicitly Christian character than they were even five years ago. I think this is a good thing - good for our political culture.”

“Anyone weighing whether to re-elect the President should take the bin Laden operation into account: it is a powerful exhibit that Obama is a steely Commander in Chief - a critical test for many Americans.”

“Attacks on a politician's identity - questioning Romney's religion, say, or Obama's birthplace - tend to come when an opponent is desperate and can't sell himself.”

“I am an Episcopalian who takes the faith of my fathers seriously, and I would, I think, be disheartened if my own young children were to turn away from the church when they grow up. I am also a critic of Christianity, if by critic one means an observer who brings historical and literary judgment to bear on the texts and traditions of the church.”

“It would be great if politics were fact-based, but it is not, and it is surely not nuance-based. What works in a classroom or a think tank does not work on Capitol Hill or in the White House. Obama sometimes seems to be running the Brookings Institution, not the country.”

“Once the cry and the cause of a generation of progressives to make America safer, fairer and cleaner, 'regulation' is now a dirty word in our politics. Even Democrats are quick to talk about cutting regulations; Republicans hate them with - how to put it? - evangelical fervor.”

“One wonders whether the Obama re-election campaign may be on the right track as it seeks to apply the you-break-it-you-own-it rule to Bush and the American economy. Hardly a day goes by without President Obama or his surrogates arguing that it takes longer than four years to recover from an economic crisis so long in the making.”