A biography for Richard Cohenhasn’t been written yet.
“The ability and willingness to keep two opposing views in mind at the same time are hallmarks of adulthood.”
“George W. Bush, a charming and utterly gracious man, was a catastrophic twofer. He took the United States to war in Iraq, a wrenching debacle: more than 4,000 Americans dead, nearly 32,000 wounded, and the Middle East destabilized with Iranian influence enhanced.”
“Lots of men have failed as presidents, as Trump surely will, but few fail so dismally as role models. He's a boy's idea of a man. He's a man's idea of a boy.”
“Large government is inevitably inefficient, but so, too, is large private enterprise.”
“The grieving are surely owed our empathy, but capital punishment can neither right a wrong nor prevent another from happening.”
“We grow up to respect the gray. Black or white, one or the other, is childish. It represents the worldview of someone who does not know the world.”
“Trump's juvenilia stands in stark contrast to Obama's measured words.”
“Churchill had a marvelous way with words, and greatness accompanied him like a shadow, but in certain ways, he was a 19th-century man wandering, confounded, in the 20th.”
“It's all right with me if Roman Polanski is freed by the Swiss authorities who have detained him at the request of the United States - if first I get a chance to bust him one in the mouth.”
“When I was a kid, I went door to door in my neighborhood asking for donations to the Jewish National Fund, best known then for its Israel forestation program. At the age of 11 or so, I imagined myself a regular Johnny Appleseed, responsible for vast forests.”
“Let me tell you, seven days without Wolf Blitzer is heaven. A week outside 'The Situation Room' is downright calming. No 'breaking news!' No hype. Blitzer is a first-class journalist, and I mention him only by way of acknowledging his fame.”
“Hillary Clinton may have lied about her emails, but Donald Trump lies about everything.”
“Pence is the very personification of the career politician. With the exception of a few years doing talk radio and television shows, he has done nothing but run for office, winning all but the first two times.”
“Trump is unloved in his own house. A figure of ridicule, a theatrical creation, he is almost sympathetic. He was told by the greedy and the outright stupid that he would make a swell president. The Liar's Paradox has spun out of control, with liars lying to a liar who believed the lie. What would that be called? Fox News, I think.”
“To anyone other than an adamant social conservative, Pence is shockingly unreasonable. But he is also shockingly hypocritical.”
“Travelgate eventually faded, and the nation somehow survived - American exceptionalism at work again.”
“If every senator looks into the mirror and sees a future president, then every president looks into that same mirror and sees himself on Mount Rushmore.”
“What's the justification for a semiautomatic weapon with a magazine of 30 rounds?”
“I reveled in political science and history of all kinds, and I felt for a long time that I had discovered all the secrets of life in psychology, although its Freudian variety left me cold. The id never made much sense to me.”
“How is it possible to defame Trump? When Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called the president a 'moron,' was that defamatory or merely the prosaic truth?”