Americans have been given goals to achieve in Iraq but not the standards by which to measure progress. And the only assurance Americans have been given that we can reach those goals is to trust the President and his Administration at their word.
There used to be this feeling under Eisenhower and Kennedy and Roosevelt and Truman that government was a solution. Trust in the presidency fell precipitously under Johnson - real lows. And it's never come back. It's a trend that if you're liberal is really discouraging.
Every president has to live with the result of what Lyndon Johnson did with Vietnam when he lost the trust of the American people in the presidency.
Not one Republican president has balanced the budget in 34 years. You can not trust Republicans with your money.
We've not had one Republican president in 34 years balance the budget. You can't trust right-wing Republicans with your money. You ought to hire somebody who has balanced a budget. I'm much more conservative with money than George Bush is.
As the President has indicated my life has been a life of travel - for 60 years constantly moving over the wide world on journeys which first and last have taken me to 83 countries and what is more significant to most of them again and again.
I see a trend here where the President seems to think his job is to count votes and then try to make a deal That's what we in legislatures do. Mr. Obama's job is to travel the country fight for the values that he cares about.
The President's political travel is going to get blamed (and probably rightly) for a share of this downturn.
If you travel to the States... they have a lot of different words than like what we use. For instance: they say 'elevator' we say 'lift' they say 'drapes' we say 'curtains' they say 'president' we say 'seriously deranged git.'
My job is to be a spokesman - the spokesman I suppose - for the President for the White House to do the daily briefings to manage the press corps in terms of travel day-to-day needs access interviews all those issues.