Bill Kristol Quotes

#1. Surely our inaction with respect to Syria is a poor precedent if we're fighting a war on terror.

Bill Kristol

#2. If the American people really come to a settled belief that Bush lied us into war, his presidency will be over.

Bill Kristol

#3. The average GOP presidential vote in these last five elections was 44.5 percent. In the last three, it was 48.1 percent. Give Romney an extra point for voter disillusionment with Obama, and a half-point for being better financed than his predecessors. It still strikes me as a path to narrow defeat.

Bill Kristol

#4. Patriotism is an indispensable weapon in the defense of civilization against barbarism.

Bill Kristol

#5. If Romney explains why where we are with Obama is unacceptable, why whither we are tending is even worse - and why his own alternative path forward is superior - then we trust the American people to make the right choice in November.

Bill Kristol

#6. While a defeat for Obamacare in the Court would be nice, the defeat of President Obama at the polls on November 6 is crucial. If electoral victory is achieved, Obamacare can and will be repealed - and more judges of a constitutionalist persuasion will be appointed by the next president.

Bill Kristol

#7. Lest conservatives be too proud, it's worth recalling that conservatism's rise was decisively enabled by liberalism's weakness.

Bill Kristol

#8. Conservative policies have on the whole worked - insofar as any set of policies can be said to 'work' in the real world. Conservatives of the Reagan-Bush-Gingrich-Bush years have a fair amount to be proud of.

Bill Kristol

#9. Bush is no conservative.

Bill Kristol

#10. There will be trying times during Obama's presidency, and liberty will need staunch defenders. Can Obama reshape liberalism to be, as it was under F.D.R., a fighting faith, unapologetically patriotic and strong in the defense of liberty? That would be a service to our country.

Bill Kristol

#11. I personally - if I were designing the tax code - would have a tax code in which Mitt Romney paid more than 13 percent, given what I know about the kind of investments he made money from.

Bill Kristol

#12. In any case, decisions on troop levels in the American system of government are not made by any general or set of generals but by the civilian leadership of the war effort.

Bill Kristol

#13. Shouldn't Democrats insist that Sen. Durbin step down as their whip, the number two man in their leadership?

Bill Kristol

#14. Many of Bush's defenders have praised him for keeping the country safe since Sept. 11, 2001. He deserves that praise, and I'm perfectly happy to defend most of his surveillance, interrogation and counterterrorism policies against his critics.

Bill Kristol

#15. All defense secretaries in wartime have, needless to say, made misjudgments.

Bill Kristol