Mark Shields Country Quotations

Iraq is in a civil war. There is no road in that country that is safe.

If you're on the other side from me, you're not simply wrong or ill-informed or mistaken. We don't share the same country, the same values. You may not be the same kind of an American I am.

The Republicans are looking at a country that is going to be a majority minority country in just over a generation. And they are an increasingly white party.

Barack Obama did get a higher percentage of the vote than anybody has in this country in 20 years. I mean, it was a resounding victory. I mean, whether his core constituency was 20 percent or what, his electoral constituency, which is how we measure elections, was 53 percent, which was, you know, historically high, the highest of any Democrat, other than Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson.

The Republicans, they are in the danger of rooting for the country to fail. They look bad that way, I mean, and I want to say to them, cheer up, Republicans. Eventually, things will get worse.

The uncritically admiring supporters and friends of the prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu], in whose ranks I certainly don't include David [Brooks], but include Charles Krauthammer, the columnist, and Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, insist on comparing him to the incomparable leader of the British forces in country in part of - during World War II.

There is no tougher job in America than being a cop on the beat in a major city in this country, big and brawling.

Drones are sort of the perfect weapon for a country that doesn't want to go to war. It only - there's no fingerprint. There's no direct involvement. There's human beings killed on the other end. You never see them. You don't have to worry about them. You don't have to meet their widows. It's sort of an antiseptic warfare.

Clinton's major problem, and the two aren't separable really because there is hope in the country, the hope - - optimism has slipped dramatically, make no mistake about every measurement shows that. But the hope is still there. Hope is with him. People want change. They see him as the best chance for change.

Sometimes, you just let the country have its way, and you don't try to determine the shape of the country. You sort of modestly step back and let the country figure out what it believes.