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For all the talk about the bitterness and the partisanship in American politics, is it really that bitter and partisan? Think of American history. Think of Joseph McCarthy. Think of the New Left. Think of [George] McGovern. Think of [Ronald] Reagan. Think of George Wallace. We've had an awful lot of real extremism on both wings.

William Kristol

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More quotes by William Kristol

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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.
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He has a competent person, I think who will be confirmed as HHS secretary, Congressman Tom Price.
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Maybe one thing that has happened is that the claims of non-partisanship of the mainstream media have been a little bit exploded. Mostly I'd say what, if anything has caused the change, are just the obvious technological changes - proliferation of easier access to getting your opinions out and the proliferation of media.
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Whenever I hear anything described as a heartless assault on our children, I tend to think it’s a good idea.
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Political parties are complicated coalitions and aren't excessively theoretical.
William Kristol
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I think [Donald Trump] will do something on immigration.
William Kristol
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All defense secretaries in wartime have, needless to say, made misjudgments.
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We can remove Saddam because that could start a chain reaction in the Arab world that would be very healthy.
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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.
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That's always been the case in America there's been a big spectrum in how much people are interested in American politics.
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William Kristol
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Having defeated and then occupied Iraq, democratizing the country should not be too tall an order for the world's sole superpower.
William Kristol
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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.
William Kristol
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I don't think you want political parties that are entirely driven by some extremely doctrinal ideology.
William Kristol
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It's been an unusual election [2016].
William Kristol
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If we free the people of Iraq, we will be respected in the Arab world... and I think we will be respected around the world.
William Kristol
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William Kristol
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My sense from talking to college students is that you have a healthier sense of the diversity of opinions or arguments or analysis about issues. In our day it was just sort of, Well gee, this is what the news says so that's the way it is. It didn't really get challenged that much.
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I'm happy to have interns at The Weekly Standard and happy to have readers of The Weekly Standard, but if you all tell me that you were busy reading Plato and [Lev] Tolstoy and playing violin in the orchestra, I'd say that was great. I wouldn't tell you to take time out from that to get involved in political journalism.
William Kristol