Economist/columnist Robert Samuelson: “The first thing to do: Start drilling. It may surprise Americans to discover the United States is the third-largest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. We could be producing more, but Congress has put large areas of potential supply off-limits. These include the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and parts of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. By government estimates, these areas may contain 25 billion to 30 billion barrels of oil (against about 30 billion barrels of proven U.S. reserves today) and 80 trillion cubic feet or more of natural gas (compared with about 200 trillion cubic feet of proven reserves).”
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Former Republican Sen. Fred Thompson: “Conservatism is alive and well in America — don’t let anyone tell you differently. And by conservatism, I don’t mean the warmed-over ‘raise your hand if you believe’ kind of conservatism we see blooming every election cycle. No, I’m speaking of the conservatism grounded in principles based upon enduring truths. An understanding of the importance of human nature in the affairs of individuals and nations. Respect for the lessons of history, the importance of faith and tradition. The understanding that while man is prone to err, he is capable of great things when not subjugated by a too-powerful government.”
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Novelist, essayist, and Fordham law professor Thane Rosenbaum: “Gearing up to elect a new president, we are left to wonder how, in spite of numerous failed polices and poor judgment, President Bush’s greatest achievement (he kept us safe after 9/11) was denied to him by people who ungratefully availed themselves of the protection that his administration provided.”
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Columnist Albert Hunt: “Hillary Clinton will have nightmares about her botched run for the presidency. . . . It’s going to be tougher for her husband. The most talented and resilient politician of this generation has damaged his standing with gaffes, political miscalculations, and a series of paranoiac, volcanic eruptions.”
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The Wall Street Journal’s Gordon Crovitz: “Aristotle lived during the era when the written word displaced the oral tradition, becoming the first to explain that how we communicate alters what we communicate. . . . It’s still early in the process of a digital rhetoric replacing the more traditionally written word. . . . (With the advent of the Internet) we’re not giving up books for the same words on screens — we’re giving up on words. Pick your data point: A recent National Endowment for the Arts report, ‘To Read or Not to Read,’ found that 15- to 24-year-olds spend an average of seven minutes reading on weekdays; people between 35 and 44 spend 14 minutes; and people 65 and older spend close to an hour.”