When you appoint someone, you appoint somebody because of their character, their convictions, their abilities. And not because you have a belief, a confidence, in a foreordained outcome in any given decision.

You may be right that people say: You know what, we had Obama. He was inexperienced. The guy had great rhetoric, sounded good, looked good, but has turned out to be an utter disaster. I want someone where I have confidence and credibility that they're up to the job and that I can trust what they tell me.

I hate to sound sort of diffident about it but it strikes me that a lot of people on the right have got active lives and are doing other things.

The government that can take everything from somebody can take everything from everybody. And there ought to be a limit.

Life is rough for a lot of people. Some people live in greater material circumstances than others, but life is rough for everybody.

If you decide to become a political actor, then the things that you say and you do become subject of public scrutiny and comment.

Look, in 1800 the sainted Thomas Jefferson arranged to hire a notorious slanderer named James Callender, who worked as a writer at a Republican newspaper in Richmond, Va. Read some of what he wrote about John Adams. This was a personal slander.