I am on the whole a defender of the current, despite being a conservative. I mean, I think things are better than when I was younger.

He has a competent person, I think who will be confirmed as HHS secretary, Congressman Tom Price.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.