presidencies-of-the-united-states

"In June 2009, the United States further withdrew across Iraq, retrenching to large bases and largely staying out of day-to-day security operations except for in a few restive areas. For some months before, the United States ad likewise begun scaling back on the Sons of Iraq initiative, a move that ha not, as many predicted, resulted in a wholesale return among former insurgents to their murderous ways. There are still bombings in Iraq, sometimes very lethal ones, but they remain, for now, fairly isolated incidents. While Iraq may never become the model of Middle Eastern democracy and capitalism that the Bush administration envisioned, the current consensus among military chiefs as well as politicians and planners of every political affiliation is that the situation there is stable enough to allow the United States to withdraw completely without considering it a defeat. With the war in Afghanistan deteriorating rapidly and taking on a renewed urgency with the Obama administration, the United States remains on schedule to withdraw all American troops from Iraq by the end of 2011. For some, however, the war will never be over."

"“Our misjudgements of friend and foe alike,” McNamara concluded sadly, “reflected our profound ignorance of the history, culture, and politics of the people in the area and the personalities and habits of their leaders.” It is not a lesson the Bush White House of recent years appears to have learned. You believe in studying reality, a senior adviser said contemptuously to the journalist Ron Suskind in 2002. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “Were an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” If the White House had studied reality a bit more, the president might not have used the word crusade two days after September 11 to refer to how he intended to deal with terrorists. Muslims, even moderate ones, tend to react viscerally to being reminded of much earlier attacks from the West. If some attention had been paid to reality, the United States and the United Kingdom might not have been quite so surprised that Iraqis failed to welcome them or appreciate foreign control of their oil."

"The similarities between the Wilson and Trump administration and the ways in which they handled the 1918 and the 2020 pandemics is uncanny. President Woodrow Wilson didn't issue one public statement about influenza even as hundreds of thousands of Americans were dying. As World War I was winding down, he stubbornly refused to halt troop mobilizations, thereby allowing infections to spread both here and abroad. Both men, at least on the surface, had an obsession that kept them from being interested in the pandemic- for Wilson it was the war and for Donald it was the economy. But perhaps the most remarkable thing about the 1918 pandemic is the silence that followed. In some ways it's as if it never happened. The only account in literature I could find is a short story by Katherine Anne Porter. Perhaps the tragedy got swallowed up by the crisis of the world war before and the catastrophe of the Depression after. Or perhaps the totality of the loss, 725,000 dead, more than we've lost today, and a much larger percentage of the population, made it impossible to process."

"I hope my message is loud and clear: America is back. And America is ready to lead"

"We respect the choice of the American people. We extend congratulations to Mr Biden and Ms Harris"

"The Electoral College has spoken, this morning, our country has officially a president-elect and a vice president-elect."

"I don't want to get ahead of the line. But I want to make sure that we demonstrate to the American people that it is safe to take."

"Yes he will, [be the next president of the United States]"

"It is the day after Christmas, and millions of families don’t know if they’ll be able to make ends meet because of President Donald Trump’s refusal to sign an economic relief bill approved by Congress with an overwhelming and bipartisan majority"

"With today’s decision by Judge Matthew Brann, a longtime conservative Republican whom I know to be a fair and unbiased jurist, to dismiss the Trump campaign’s lawsuit, President Trump has exhausted all plausible legal options to challenge the result of the presidential race in Pennsylvania"

"We're taking the extremist threats very seriously. And we're vetting all of our soldiers. We're going to continue to look at the entire army as a whole and how we can ensure that these threats are not in our formation. And if they are, we'll find them and we'll get rid of them"

"The Biden administration at the beginning of the 2023 Israel-Hamas war gave full support, full throttle support for the Netanyahu government, what they’re doing, and now they’re trying to rein it in. In a way, they enabled a monster and they can’t pull them back."

"This weekend, Congress sees another 100-day anniversary go by—this one dating from when President Joe Biden requested $106 billion in emergency defense aid for Israel and Ukraine, as well as additional funding for border enforcement. For those 100 days, Congress has refused to act on Biden’s request. The main obstacle is the House of Representatives, and within the House, the pro-Trump MAGA caucus that toppled the previous speaker, Kevin McCarthy. The MAGA caucus then vetoed McCarthy’s most eligible successors, eventually bringing the ultra-Trumpist Johnson to his high office, which is second only to the vice president in the presidential succession."

"The Biden record on national-security policy gives plenty of basis for criticism. A normal opposition party would have been investigating why the administration was caught so unprepared by the collapse of the Afghan military in 2021. U.S. military assistance to Kyiv was dangerously stingy in the year before Russia’s invasion in February 2022, as Adrian Karatnycky’s forthcoming history of contemporary Ukraine details. Since the invasion, the Biden administration has hesitated on many occasions to provide potentially decisive weapons for fear of aggravating Moscow. When the White House eventually got over those qualms, the fears were each time exposed as groundless. Yet the lesson was never learned for the next round. And now, in the Red Sea, the Biden administration has so far refrained from decisive action to deter the attacks on international shipping by Iran’s Houthi proxies in Yemen. Some Republicans—those still willing to act as members of a normal opposition party—have indeed criticized the Biden administration for being too tardy or too timid against this threat or that. In October, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, rightly accused the president of “prolonging” the war in Ukraine by offering only half measures."

"It’s a valid complaint that Biden failed to send all he could, when he could. But why is the complaint valid? Because the background political reality is that Donald Trump is an enemy of Ukraine and an admirer of the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. As Trump has neared renomination, his party—especially in the House of Representatives—has surrendered to his pro-Putin pressure. Biden overestimated the time available to keep aid flowing to Ukraine because he underestimated the servility of House Republicans to Trump’s anti-Ukraine animus. At the same time, the GOP’s presumptive nominee has reportedly been pressuring Senate Republicans to reject a deal on the spending package, because candidate Trump does not want Biden awarded any win, particularly one that involves enhancing border security, in this election year. So vital aid to Israel and Ukraine must be delayed and put in further doubt because of a rejected president’s spite and his party’s calculation of electoral advantage."

"The true outcome of the fiasco in Congress will be the collapse of U.S. credibility all over the world. American allies will seek protection from more trustworthy partners, and America itself will be isolated and weakened. The 100 days of shame that have already passed are a prelude to worse disasters to come. The House Republicans have a majority of only six (219 to 213). On that slim margin hangs the good name of the United States and the security of countries that have been able to trust American promises for decades. All the candles in the world will not compensate for the betrayal under way."

"Well, I'm looking very, very closely at it [certifying the Electoral College votes] , and I've been one of the first to say, everything is on the table. I'm fighting for this president because he's fought for us. He's our president and we are going to keep making sure that this is a fair election and I'm looking very closely at it. But again, none of it matters if I can't win on January 5th."

"I'm a fan of good process. In my comments three days after the election, I was trying to be a voice of reason and express why it's in the national interest to have all Americans believe the election is being resolved correctly. But the outcome is very certain today, and the country should move on."

"I supported President Trump and the strong economic path he built. Like many in the business community, I am ready to help President-elect Biden and his team as they confront the significant challenges of rebuilding our post-COVID economy."