"I was on CNN the other day and I was asked if, because of the war in Iraq, high gas prices, Hurricane Katrina, Tom DeLay and a few real ethical lapses, I thought the Republican Party had a ‘perception problem?’ My answer was an unequivocal ‘Yes.’ The next day, I was at an event attended by some fellow Republicans. Two came up to me and said I should not have admitted that we have a problem on the air. My response was I didn’t think the ‘ostrich strategy’ was going to get us a lot of votes come 2006 and 2008."

"As President, Bush has deviated from the ideologized conservative norm — particularly in federal spending and federal intrusiveness. In his federally financed compassionate conservatism, the notion of limited government disappears up the chimney. It may be that truly compassionate conservatism can be achieved in no other way. Yet following Katrina, which dismayingly put human faces on the sterile data of poverty, the Bush commitment of a $200 billion solution hardly conforms to any tenet of today’s conservative ideology.”

Columnist Gary J. Andres, on Democrats Talking About the Budget Deficit and Fiscal Responsibility:

"Democrats talk a lot about the budget deficit these days, but listen carefully to their words. It’s hard to tell by reading their lips because they offer few concrete specifics, but their pleas for fiscal sanctification are code words for an older Democrat orthodoxy — raising taxes."

A Washington Times Editorial, on Extending Federal Election Law Restrictions to the Internet:

"What is perhaps the one thing the left-wing DailyKos.com and the right-wing RedState.org, both political blogs, agree on? That when it comes to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold), the government has no business telling them what to do. … [A]pplying McCain-Feingold to the Internet, even if diluted to protect bloggers, would mean that only millionaires like Mrs. Huffington, or those funded by them, could afford to start a blog. Everyone else, like those who pay nothing for a site at Blogger.com, would have to have some way of knowing if their blogging is violating the briar patch of campaign-finance laws which only lawyers know how to navigate. Forcing a potential blogger to hire a lawyer would effectively kill the blogosphere as we’ve come to know and appreciate it."

Columnist Nat Hentoff, on Cindy Sheehan and the War in Iraq:

"Omitted from Cindy Sheehan’s diligent march to becoming a celebrity are some questions the press doesn’t ask her. If the president were to send the troops home, have you thought of the many Iraqis who voted in their first free elections despite the all too real danger that they would be shot to death at the polls? Were you at least impressed by their extraordinary courage? Have you thought about them at all, or would their deaths just be collateral damage in the higher good of your antiwar campaign?"

Columnist Helle Dale, on Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to the International Atomic Energy Agency and its Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei for Fighting Nuclear Proliferation:

"The unlikely choice for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize comes as European and American negotiations to persuade Iran to give up its uranium enrichment cycle have reached a total impasse and as agreements with North Korea to give up its dangerous nuclear program are at best tentative. The list of countries either with nuclear weapons or capable of acquiring them is steadily growing. In other words, if the Norwegians are rewarding anything, it is failure."

Columnist Richard Cohen, on the Investigation Into the Leak of Former CIA Officer Valerie Plame’s Identity:

"The best thing Patrick Fitzgerald could do for his country is get out of Washington, return to Chicago and prosecute some real criminals. As it is, all he has done so far is send Judith Miller of the New York Times to jail and repeatedly haul this or that administration high official before a grand jury, investigating a crime that probably wasn’t one in the first place… More is at stake here than bringing down Karl Rove or some other White House apparatchik, or even settling some score with Miller… The greater issue is control of information. … This — this creepy silence — will be the consequence of dusting off rarely used statutes to still the tongues of leakers and intimidate the press in its pursuit of truth, fame and choice restaurant tables."

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Asked Whether the Supreme Court Will Change Its Rules and Allow Its Hearings to be Televised:

"Not a chance. Because we don't want to become entertainment. I think there is something sick about making entertainment out of real people's legal problems. I don't like it in the lower courts, and I don't particularly like it in the Supreme Court."

Late Night Talk Show Host Jay Leno, on the New Book by Former FBI Director Louis Freeh:

"In a scathing new book, former FBI chief Louis Freeh criticizes former President Bill Clinton's 'moral compass.' You all remember Bill Clinton's moral compass, don't ya? I believe it was always pointing north, if I'm not mistaken."

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