Fred Barnes Quotations

The mainstream media may have trouble resisting the temptation to declare that Karl Rove has been demoted, but the truth is quite the contrary. By giving up his role as deputy White House chief of staff, Rove has been freed to do what he does best: shape big issues and develop strategies to win elections.

Presidents with strong nerves are decisive. They don't balk at unpopular decisions. They are willing to make people angry. Bush had strong nerves. Clinton, who passed up a chance to eliminate Osama bin Laden, did not. Obama is a people pleaser, a trait not normally associated with nerves of steel.

Obama sounded like Al Gore on global warming. The more the case for man-made warming falls apart, the more hysterical Gore gets about an imminent catastrophe. The more public support his stimulus bill loses, the more Obama embraces fear-mongering.

President Obama insists hes a free-market guy. But you have to wonder whether he understands how a free economy really works.

Obama specializes in knocking down straw men. 'I reject the view that says our problems will simply take care of themselves,' he said, implying that's the view of Republicans. It's the view of almost no one.

Candidates don't have to deal with reality. They talk about the wonderful things they can accomplish as if advocating them is the same as achieving them. They live in a world of political make-believe in which everything from reconciling conflicting interests to paying for costly programs is easy.

I expect to see him at the podium in just a few days, in the press room at the White House.

... He can start the equivalent of his third term now , by filling his presidential staff and cabinet with new faces -- or old faces in new positions -- and by concentrating on new or forgotten initiatives.

It's amazing. You can't drink outside and you can't smoke inside. It really makes it hard to keep your business open. There's always someone else with their hand in your pocket.

It's hypocritical. Is it affecting business, or is it not affecting business? They're telling us, the small people that it's not affecting business, but when it's in their pocket, the casinos, now you're exempting the casinos because the state's got so much money tied up in the revenue of the casinos.

He's a major media figure, he's someone people know all over the country.

Never miss it - that's the second biggest compliment I'd give to RealClearPolitics.com. The first is that it has become indispensable to anyone, in or outside of journalism, who's interested in politics, policy, or world affairs.

Overreaction is one of the things that congress specializes in. I can't think of anything congress does better than overreact.

Thomas Sowell is America's foremost public intellectual and for good reason. His work covers almost every subject imaginable- race, economics, Marxism, ethnic groups, immigration patterns, just to name a few. He is persuasive and provocative and always scintillating. I've read all his books and never been even faintly disappointed. Black Rednecks & White Liberals is no exception.

The coverage of Central America in recent months points up one of the ugly truths about the American press: the better the news, the less of it you get. As the war began to turn against the Communist guerillas in El Salvador, there was a palpable dip in the attention paid to it.

Religion's crucial role in the lives of many people... is rejected out of hand by the political community, especially the press.

The most important quality any piece of writing can have is doneness.

Ronald Reagan has a story for every occasion. Bill Clinton has an excuse for every occasion.

The American people are not as casualty-sensitive as the weenies in the American press are.

Conservatives won't want to hear this, but the Republican who maneuvered his way into the most impressive victory of the election was California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Okay, he's sui generis. But he won a landslide victory after moving to the center, while holding onto conservatives by not hiking taxes.

I don't think that's what journalists ought to do, even if they're in opinion journalism.