Our senior officers knew the war was going badly. Yet they bowed to groupthink pressure and kept up pretenses. ...Many of my generation, the career captains, majors, and lieutenant colonels seasoned in that war, vowed that when our turn came to call the shots, we would not quietly acquiesce in halfhearted warfare for half-baked reasons that the American people could not understand.

The most effective means of ensuring the government's accountability to the people is an aggressive, free, challenging, untrusting press.

Great leaders are those who are able to look reality in the face, however painful it may be, and deal with it.

I'm not active in politics. I vote as a citizen. And if somebody cares to know what my opinion is at the time of the election, I might or might not share it publicly.

I think we can make a contribution to their [Saudi Arabia] thinking as they decide how they should deal with the economic and social challenges that they are facing.

I have seen many organizations where there is this sense of purpose in the headquarters but it never gets cascaded down to everybody within the organization.

I want to see policies that encourage every American to vote, not make it more difficult to vote.