Shouldn't Democrats insist that Sen. Durbin step down as their whip, the number two man in their leadership?

Bush is no conservative.

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

Shouldn't Democrats insist that Sen. Durbin step down as their whip, the number two man in their leadership?

Surely our inaction with respect to Syria is a poor precedent if we're fighting a war on terror.

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

If the American people really come to a settled belief that Bush lied us into war, his presidency will be over.

In any case, decisions on troop levels in the American system of government are not made by any general or set of generals but by the civilian leadership of the war effort.

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.

Conservatives shouldn't count on the Supreme Court to do our work for us on Obamacare. The Court may rule as it should, and strike down the mandate. But it may not. And even if it does, the future of health care in America - and for that matter, the future of limited government - depends ultimately on the verdict of the American people.

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.

If Romney explains why where we are with Obama is unacceptable, why whither we are tending is even worse - and why his own alternative path forward is superior - then we trust the American people to make the right choice in November.

If terror groups are to be defeated, it is national governments that will have to do so. In nations like India, governments will have to call on the patriotism of citizens to fight the terrorists. In a nation like Pakistan, the government will have to be persuaded to deal with those in their midst who are complicit.

Lest conservatives be too proud, it's worth recalling that conservatism's rise was decisively enabled by liberalism's weakness.

Many of Bush's defenders have praised him for keeping the country safe since Sept. 11, 2001. He deserves that praise, and I'm perfectly happy to defend most of his surveillance, interrogation and counterterrorism policies against his critics.

Patriotism is an indispensable weapon in the defense of civilization against barbarism.

Romney has to convince the American public that they need to do something they're not usually inclined to do - replace a sitting president with a challenger. And unlike in 1980 and 1992, when the public was persuaded to do just that, the incumbent president has not been weakened by a primary opponent.

Since Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, conservatives of various sorts, and conservatisms of various stripes, have generally been in the ascendancy. And a good thing, too! Conservatives have been right more often than not - and more often than liberals - about most of the important issues of the day.

The average GOP presidential vote in these last five elections was 44.5 percent. In the last three, it was 48.1 percent. Give Romney an extra point for voter disillusionment with Obama, and a half-point for being better financed than his predecessors. It still strikes me as a path to narrow defeat.

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.

While a defeat for Obamacare in the Court would be nice, the defeat of President Obama at the polls on November 6 is crucial. If electoral victory is achieved, Obamacare can and will be repealed - and more judges of a constitutionalist persuasion will be appointed by the next president.

We don't have a lot of Reagan-type leaders in our party. Remember Ronald Reagan Democrats? I want a Republican that can attract Democrats.

One of the great joys this year and the year before has been how all of the people in this body, men and women, Republicans and Democrats, have worked together so well with our chairman and the chairman of the full committee to address the issues of housing for our soldiers.

Contrast that with the call of the Liberal Democrats in April, when they were prepared to call upon the British people to participate in a 24-hour strike. It shows how far to the right the Labour Party's gone.

I think Democrats keep the commandments of the Lord more.

I think it is important to ask ourselves as citizens, not as Democrats attacking the administration, but as citizens, whether a world power can really provide global leadership on the basis of fear and anxiety?

The American people are screaming at the top of their lungs to Washington, 'Stop! Stop the spending, stop the job-killing policies.' And yet, Democrats in Washington refuse to listen to the American people.

Welfare reform happened with reconciliation; half the Democrats voted for it. The Bush tax cuts happened with reconciliation; twelve Democratic Senators voted for it. You didn't have a real partisan issue on those times that it was used.

Democrats were quick to point out that President Bush's budget creates a 1 trillion dollar deficit. The White House quickly responded with 'Hey, look over there, it's Saddam Hussein.'

Democrats have laid out a program that, if adopted, would make us independent of Middle Eastern oil in ten years, and create a new economy especially for those in rural America. Our program invests in clean energy alternatives and provides energy assistance for those in need.

Real Democrats don't make promises they can't keep.

I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers. What I said was that all saloonkeepers are Democrats.

I welcome the Democrats' ideas on Social Security. I think it is very important to make a bipartisan reform.

Democrats are not about to nominate anyone who backs the tax cut, and Americans are not going to elect anyone who favors a tax increase.

We're going to march on Washington with a host of Republicans, Democrats, business leaders, legislators.

And I want to be able to - you know, make Republicans and Democrats famous for keeping jobs in California.

There's not an appropriations bill in the last 10 years that the-that Democrats passed in the Congress. We haven't spent any money of your taxes in the last decade.

The Senate needs 60 votes to pass anything. They have to compromise with liberal Democrats to spend more money. Even though arguably we have control of the Senate, we really don't.

Anybody who runs for president in this country and comes out as strong as the Democrats were about helping the poor folks and black folks is not going to win.

California is going to be quite good for the Democrats. But the rest of the country is a draw.

The Democrats have no actual policy proposals of their own unless constant carping counts as a policy.

The greatest thing the Democrats have ever done for me was to defeat me for the governor of Tennessee.

The House Democrats don't want Gore humiliated, so they slammed the door of the Capitol in my face. They are cowards.

The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.

I don't understand the Democrats' approach to Social Security in this country, and I'm not alone.

The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt, too.

And American voters understand that if we want to keep fighting to move in the new - in a new direction, we've got a long way to go. And we need to make sure we continue with Democrats being in the majority.

This is a struggle for the soul of the Democratic Party, which in too many cases has become so corporate and identified with corporate interests that you can't tell the difference between Democrats and Republicans.

The big divide in this country is not between Democrats and Republicans, or women and men, but between talkers and doers.