Robert Dallek

“Once the public loses confidence in a president's leadership at a time of war, once they don't trust him anymore, once his credibility is sharply diminished, how does he get it back?”

“From the moment he took office in January of 1961, Kennedy had been eager to settle the Cuban problem without overt military action by the United States.”

“Historians evaluating George W. Bush's first term will focus on foreign policy and, most of all, 9/11. I think they will criticize him for his early reaction, for not returning at once to Washington, D.C.”

“The 1890s was an intensely patriotic decade for Americans. It was a time of neo-imperialism, when the European powers and the United States were establishing their flags around the globe.”

“If nobody trusts you as president, then you can't get anything done.”

“Unity is Obama's theme.”

“Historians will look back and say, 'Foreign policy in the Ford presidency was very much dominated by Kissinger, with a kind of continuity from the Nixon period.' Ford is not going to be remembered as a really significant foreign policy maker.”

“Obama is cutting back on the idea that we're going to have Jeffersonian democracy in Pakistan or anywhere else.”