Success in past U.S. conflicts has not been strictly the result of military leadership but rather the judgment of the president in choosing generals and setting broad strategy.

The consequence of the Bay of Pigs failure wasn't an acceptance of Castro and his control of Cuba but, rather, a renewed determination to bring him down by stealth.

In counterfactual history, nothing is certain.

... what's in a person's heart and soul will not likely be changed by the ability to command a helicopter to land on the South Lawn.

Like Lyndon Johnson, President Obama understands that timidity in a time of troubles is a prescription for failure.

What makes war interesting for Americans is that we don't fight war on our soil, we don't have direct experience of it, so there's an openness about the meanings we give it.

Presidents by six years have been there long enough for the media and the country to see their flaws.

It is very difficult for [people] to accept the idea that someone as inconsequential as Oswald could have killed someone as consequential as Kennedy.

The art of diplomacy is finding a reasonable route among imperfect alternatives.

JFK to RFK: To survive in politics, you sometimes have to be willing to make fun of yourself.

Vietnam was a palpable failure. And of course, in retrospect, it was even more clearly a disaster and a failure than maybe people understood at the time.

Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.

Who ever felt canary yellow and light blue are a suitable color should be tarred and feathered.

you only talk to yourself when you pray without believing and having faith in your prayers

It's normal to dream about anything at all. It's not normal to dream someone else's dreams." -Arthur Mentis

That is not to say that we can relax our readiness to defend ourselves. Our armament must be adequate to the needs, but our faith is not primarily in these machines of defense but in ourselves.

Foolishness is indeed painful, and verily so is youth, but more painful by far than either is being obliged in another person's house.

I'm a pretty intense person. And I don't know if intense is fun. I put myself through the wringer. That's just how I work.

The main thing about the word jazz, is that it's very limiting to what people are doing.

The Linux philosophy is "laugh in the face of danger". Oops. Wrong one. "Do it yourself". That's it.

A law is always that much more scary and that much more effective for a totalitarian state if it's selectively enforced.