Wayne Fields Quotations

Jefferson expected them to bring something back other than samples of this and that. They were really going to represent the West in the American imagination. They had to somehow say, 'This is America.' No one had really had that burden before.

The speech will give millions of Americans an impression of this president and his administration at a time when the edifice is shaky. And we never know until it is delivered how it is going to go or where it will go.

The West was very disorienting - vast, big, rough, dislocating. None of that represented home.

The West was very disorienting - vast, big, rough, dislocating, ... None of that represented home.

It was easy enough to tell us about the physical properties of the landscape, but they needed to find a way to describe both the terror and the pleasure of the vastness. There's an importance to the psychological effect the landscape produces, and that's what they were challenged to describe.

It's such a phenomenal hole in the national debate that you can have arguments with nonexistent people. All politicians try to get away with this to a certain extent. What's striking here is how much this administration rests on a foundation of this kind of stuff.

In the early stages, it showed affection for the president. But now what you want is somebody with maturity and confidence who doesn't need that kind of assurance.

He's suffering enough now and this is certainly more fuel for the fire.

All he had to do in 2002 was say 'We're going to do something,' and everyone was going to cheer. It really didn't matter much what it was.