“But here too it should be noted that the President’s approach was to first ask the repressive and brutal Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden to us, and only after that government refused to do that did we invade.”

The public is ready now for a safety net for the middle class, something not just for the poor, but for everyone who will need help, from time to time, in order to own a home, educate their kids, keep themselves healthy or have something to retire on.

Going before an audience of people who expect you to be funny is tough. Going before an audience that expect you to be boring, and then being a little funny, is much easier. I prefer easier.

People are entitled to the presumption of innocence.

For most of my life, I have eaten to deal with stress.

There were a lot of Romneys. There’s the Romney who was going to be better on gay rights than Ted Kennedy; now there’s a Romney who checks with Rick Santorum on that issue.

And I think there is too much bloviating around from politicians.

I have this fear that one day there’s going to be a fire in the Senate and there are only going to be 57 senators there and they’ll all die because they won’t have 60 votes to allow themselves to leave the building.

In the debate between those who believe in essentially unregulated markets and others who hold that reasonable regulation diminishes market excesses without inhibiting their basic function, the subprime situation unfortunately provides ammunition for the latter view.

I think there was an absolute, deep gap between consensual relations between adults, which people may like or dislike, and people who physically impose themselves on children or misuse their authority to impose on children.

There is an irony that the most active anti-gay groups are Al-Qaeda and the American Right wing.

Whenever people are being intellectually dishonest in debate, it is an implicit concession they have lost the fight

Today, many people take for granted the notion that people whose lives are going to be very heavily affected by public policies should have a say in how they are formulated and carried out.

There are no moderate Republicans left, with the exception of a few who would vote with us when it doesn’t make any difference,” Frank said. “It’s the most rigid ideological party since before the Civil War. … The bumper sticker I’m going to have printed up for Democrats this year is, ‘We’re not perfect, but they’re nuts.’

These two entities—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—are not facing any kind of financial crisis.

Let us not say that we will decide on a political basis at the national level that no State is competent to regulate the practice of medicine in that State if they decide to allow a doctor to prescribe marijuana, because that is what we are talking about.

While I was pleasantly surprised by the relatively high number of jobs created in April, the fact is that job creation during this recovery period has significantly lagged both historical experience in recovery, and the projections of the Bush Administration.

Our first half is about how to make a living, and our second half has the promise of being about how to make a life.

A censure would put an indelible scar on the president’s place in history, .. Monica Lewinsky is not Watergate. Let he who has no sin in this chamber cast the first stone.

All artists are protected by copyright… and we should be the first to respect copyright.

You know, as you get older, the first thing you lose is memory. It seems to be happening with me.

Ask not first what the system does; ask what it does it to!

I started out as a very traditional actor. The first thing I ever did in terms of performance was singing.

A motto I’ve adopted is, if at first you don’t succeed, hide all evidence that you ever tried.

Most of the time I am sunk in thought, but at some point on each walk there comes a moment when I look up and notice, with a kind of first-time astonishment.