I'm disappointed, depressed, and demoralized. [...] It is very hard to avoid the conclusion that President Bush flinched from a fight on constitutional philosophy. Miers is undoubtedly a decent and competent person. But her selection will unavoidably be judged as reflecting a combination of cronyism and capitulation on the part of the president.

There are a few things [Donald Trump] has been pretty clear he'll do. A big infrastructure program that he'll get bipartisan support for.

At the end of the day,[Mitt] Romney was pro-life, but [Rick] Santorum was more fervently pro-life, and had been for longer. They're all going to repeal Obamacare, but Romney has once endorsed something like it. In the old days, there really were differences on fundamental issues, even on foreign policy, [for which] [Newt] Gingrich, Romney, and Santorum were pretty similar.

Of course there are different forms of conservatism. I would say just analytically that the Republican Party is more thoroughly conservative and the Democratic Party is more thoroughly liberal today than has been the case for most of modern history.

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

It will be an unusual dynamic [in Congress]. It won't be like the rallying behind President [Barack] Obama in 2009 or behind President [George W.] Bush, even at the beginning of his presidency, or even [Bill] Clinton in '93, when he got his budget through on a partisan vote.

These soldiers deserve a better defense secretary than the one we have.