The thing political figures fear most is a terror event that will ruin their careers. The biggest thing they fear is that a bomb goes off and it can be traced to something they did or didn’t do, an action they did or didn’t support. They all fear being accused of not doing enough to keep the citizenry safe.

I guess the second-term team is not quite as adoring as the first.

Beware the politically obsessed. They are often bright and interesting, but they have something missing in their natures; there is a hole, an empty place, and they use politics to fill it up. It leaves them somehow misshapen.

I think miracles exist in part as gifts and in part as clues that there is something beyond the flat world we see.

We must try again to be alive to what the people of our country really long for in our national life: forgiveness and grace, maturity and wisdom. ...Our political leaders will know our priorities only if we tell them, again and again, and if those priorities begin to show up in the polls.

Now he is a statesman, when what he really wants is to be what most reporters are, adult delinquents.

Sincerity and competence is a strong combination. In politics, it is everything.