Bill Kristol Quotes

Barack Obama is not going to beat Hillary Clinton in a single democratic primary. I'll predict that right now.

The Obama years have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Severely wanting. By the end of Obama's presidency, the U.S. standing in the world was weaker—clearly and appreciably weaker—than when he became president. The force of American power was diminished, and freedom was in retreat. By the end of Obama's presidency, was there a single part of the world where the United States was in a stronger position than when he took office? Was there an ally who was more confident or an adversary who was less so? By the end of Obama's presidency, were any important countries either friendlier or freer than they had been when he took over? The answer to all these questions: no.

Well, Foley is responsible for it, and the voters in Florida, I guess, who elected him. Maybe they should have known better.

Donald Trump is an embarrassment. It would be better for the country if he were president for at most one term.

Hasn't America really always been, at least since the middle of the 19th century, a majority-minority country? Lincoln, July 10, 1858: "We have besides these men—descended by blood from our ancestors—among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men..."

The noble simplicity of sentiment in McCain’s tweets is a world removed from Trump’s gaudy and boastful displays. And McCain’s demonstration of character and courage is a far more reliable guide to American greatness than the pronouncements of a president who speaks of it nonstop and embodies it not at all.

The rhetorical extremism, the winking at violence, the reveling in vulgarity, and the embrace of amoralism are not bugs but features of Trumpism. Intellectual and moral coarsening is both a condition and a consequence of the demagogue's success. Trumpism really does corrupt.

You have to use words as they are understood in your time and place.

I’d rather fight than switch. It’s worth fighting.

It's not a serious document.

No disease any refugee might bring to America is as dangerous as the disease of fear, bigotry and hatred now being spread in America by Fox.

We're to blame for the "bad blood." Not Putin. The real meaning of America First is Blame America First.

The deep state is far preferable to the Trump state.

Isn't conservatism in part about resisting so-called new realities when you sense they might be questionable, even as people lecture you that you’ve got to get with the times?

I think Rumsfeld was not a good Defense Secretary. I'm glad he's gone.