Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., In the Main Supreme Court Opinion Upholding Executions by Legal Injection:

“We begin with the principle, settled by Gregg, that capital punishment is constitutional…It necessarily follows that there must be a means of carrying it out. Some risk of pain is inherent in any method of execution — no matter how humane — if only from the prospect of error in following the required procedure. It is clear, then, that the Constitution does not demand the avoidance of all risk of pain in carrying out executions.”

His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, In Remarks from the South Lawn of the White House:

“From the dawn of the Republic, America's quest for freedom has been guided by the conviction that the principles governing political and social life are intimately linked to a moral order based on the dominion of God the Creator…

“Freedom is not only a gift, but a summons to personal responsibility.”

Ralph Peters, LTC, USA-Ret., Author, Columnist and Commentator, Regarding the Mainstream Media’s Reporting of Recent Iraqi Military Operations in Basra, Iraq:

[T]he perverted gloating over recent Iraqi military operations in Basra combines willful ignorance of military affairs with a shameless manipulation of the facts. Yes, some local Iraqi police and new military recruits ran away. But that was all that the media reported.

Where was the coverage of the 95 percent of the Iraqi security forces who did their duty? Some fought superbly. The Iranian-backed gangs and militias took a beating.

Muqtada al Sadr - not the central government - asked for a cease-fire. The Iraqi military remains in Basra, still pushing (and freeing the occasional kidnapped journalist). The government now has a presence where lawlessness prevailed - and it took control of Basra's vital port facilities, the country's economic lifeline.

But all we continue to hear about is the one Iraqi cop or soldier in 20 who ran away.

Robert J. Samuelson, Newsweek and Washington Post Contributing Editor, On Playing Politics with the Columbia Free Trade Agreement:

“The latest evidence of the gap between political rhetoric and economic reality is the Democratic-controlled House's decision to set aside, possibly indefinitely, the free trade agreement negotiated with Colombia by the Bush administration. On economic grounds, there's no reason to reject the agreement. Colombia's exports already enter the U.S. market duty free under the 1991 Andean Trade Preference Act. Meanwhile, many U.S. exports to Colombia face stiff tariffs — up to 35 percent on autos, 15 percent on tractors and 10 percent on computers — most of which would ultimately go to zero under the agreement.”

Roy W. Spencer, Ph.D., Principal Research Scientist, National Space Science and Technology Global Hydrology and Climate Center, On Reducing Carbon Emissions:

“The fact is that there is simply nothing we can do — short of shutting down the global economy — that will substantially reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Prosperity requires access to abundant, affordable energy.  Thus, any mandated limits or taxes meant to slow the use of fossil fuels will limit prosperity as well, period.

“The current wave of political pandering to public misperceptions about where our energy comes from would be funny if it weren’t so deadly serious. There is simply no way to substantially reduce carbon dioxide emissions as long as increasing numbers of people around the world desire to make a better life for themselves and their families.”

The Editors, The Washington Post, Regarding Senate Confirmation of Peter D. Keisler to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit:

“Peter D. Keisler was nominated in 2006 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit; his confirmation hearing was in August of that year. It is a travesty that he has yet to get a vote from the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mr. Keisler, who was chief of the Justice Department's Civil Division before joining a private law firm, earns plaudits from the right and left for his stellar intellect and his judicial demeanor. Democrats have held up Mr. Keisler's nomination over a squabble about whether the D.C. Circuit needs 12 full-time judges. That dispute is over: Congress eliminated the 12th seat this year. Mr. Keisler should be confirmed forthwith.”

Frank Gaffney Jr., Author, Center for Security Policy Founder and President, On Former President Jimmy Carter’s Legacy:

“In the final analysis, Jimmy Carter will be best remembered by history as a man whose time in and out of high public office was almost unblemished by success. Notwithstanding a Nobel Peace Prize (given by an awards committee avowedly anxious to rebuke President Bush) and assorted good works on behalf of Habitat for Humanity, his role as a tyrant-enabler will be an object of scorn and derision rather than the vindication he so transparently, and desperately, seeks.”

QUOTES IN TIME:

“Flags over the department and throughout the city are at half-mast. Scarcely any business is being transacted anywhere either on private or public account. Our citizens, without any preconcert whatever, are draping their premises with festoons of mourning. The bells are tolling mournfully. All is the deepest gloom and sadness. Strong men weep in the streets. The grief is wide-spread and deep in strange contrast to the joy so lately manifested over our recent military victories.

“This is indeed a day of gloom.”

— The Washington Star, reporting the April 15, 1865 death of President Abraham Lincoln

This Week On the Trail:

“Small-town people of modest means and limited education are not fixated on cultural issues. Rather, it is affluent, college-educated people living in cities and suburbs who are most exercised by guns and religion. In contemporary American politics, social issues are the opiate of the elites.”

— Larry M. Bartels, Director, Princeton Center for the Study of Democratic Politics

“Obama's remarks about small-town America told us little about small-town America, but a lot about Barack. He is yet another cookie-cutter liberal who has absorbed and internalized the prejudices of that blinkered breed. He is an African-American John Lindsay, the great liberal hope of the Nixon-Agnew era, of whom Frank Manckiewicz once said: He was the only populist he knew who played squash every day at the Yale Club.”

— Pat Buchanan, Syndicated Columnist and Founding Editor, The American Conservative Magazine

“It cannot be an accident that Obama spoke as he did in an area where many two-college-degree Democrats think that, because everyone they know thinks as they do, that all the smart people must be liberals. It does not occur to them that they are cocooned in their own like-minded world, just as guys who go duck hunting and women who cook for the church bake sale might do. They dutifully nod when Obama talks about small-town voters who express ‘antipathy to people who aren't like them’ — and they don't even realize they are doing just that.

“Then they congratulate themselves for being so broad-minded.”

— Debra J. Saunders, San Francisco Chronicle Syndicated Columnist

“While McCain eagerly criticized Obama as an ‘elitist’ for his derisive comments about small-town Pennsylvanians, Obama's got nothing on McCain when it comes to insulting average Americans who oppose illegal immigration.

“Pandering to the open-borders lobby as cozily as Obama panders to San Francisco billionaires, McCain has attacked grassroots enforcement activists as bitter racists and xenophobes, cursed his Senate opponents and mocked the ‘goddamned fence’ in front of his deep-pocketed business supporters. And who can forget his disdainful admonition to conservatives, whom he berated to ‘calm down.’”

— Michelle Malkin, Author, Syndicated Columnist

“It is understandable that young people are so strongly attracted to Obama. Youth is another name for inexperience — and experience is what is most needed when dealing with skillful and charismatic demagogues.

“Those of us old enough to have seen the type again and again over the years can no longer find them exciting. Instead, they are as tedious as they are dangerous.”

— Thomas Sowell, Economist, Author and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow

“Michelle Obama is never so eloquent as when she's complaining about the burden of student loans for her two Ivy League degrees and covering the high cost of summer camp and piano lessons for her kids on her family's half-million-dollars-a-year income.”

— Jonah Goldberg, National Review OnLine Editor-at-Large

“McCain now says he'll take public financing for the general election — and he's telling Obama to do the same thing. Obama, though, knows he can raise more money from donors than McCain can. So he hasn't committed to the public system, which would limit the candidates to spending the exact same amount.

“Hillary Clinton has opted out of public financing.

“We don't blame you if you're confused at this point. The system that is supposed to wean presidential candidates from private fundraising doesn't work. As this campaign shows, it pushes candidates to navigate around arcane government rules. It skews the presidential campaign.

“Obama and McCain aren't arguing about ethics here. They're arguing about tactics.”

— The Editors, Chicago Tribune

“Clinton is viewed as ‘honest and trustworthy’ by just 39 percent of Americans, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, compared with 52 percent in May 2006. Nearly six in 10 said in the new poll that she is not honest and trustworthy. And now, compared with Obama, Clinton has a deep trust deficit among Democrats, trailing him by 23 points as the more honest, an area on which she once led both Obama and John Edwards.”

— Anne Kornblut and John Cohen, Washington Post Staff Writers

“Beware when politicians talk about ‘compassion’" especially when they hold a ‘Compassion Forum’ to do it, which is what they did at the appropriately named Messiah College near Harrisburg, Pa. Politicians identify with the messianic because they think they are God's gift to America.

“When politicians speak of compassion, put your hand on your wallet because they intend to spend your money, not theirs.”

— Cal Thomas, Syndicated Columnist

“When I saw a video of Hillary Clinton downing a shot of Crown Royal whiskey in Bronko’s Restaurant and Lounge in Crown Point, Ind., on Saturday night, I was delighted to see that she has finally learned what campaigning for president is all about.”

— Roger Simon, The Politico Chief Political Columnist

“Whatever he meant to say, Barack Obama's small-town ‘cling to’ statement was the Final Condescension. Hillary's trip from Bronko's bar to Messiah College ratified drinkin' on Saturday night and prayin' on Sunday morning.”

— Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal Editorial Page Deputy Editor