...I can tell you, without hesitation, being president of this country is entirely about character. For the record, yes, I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU, but the more important question is, why aren't you, Bob? Now, this is an organization whose sole purpose is to defend the Bill of Rights, so it naturally begs the question, why would a Senator, his party's most powerful spokesman, and a candidate for President, choose to reject upholding the Constitution? Now, if you can answer that question, folks, then you're smarter than I am, because I didn't understand it until a few hours ago.

America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You've gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land is a land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest." Now, show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms, then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free.

I've known Bob Rumson for years, and I've been operating under the assumption that the reason Bob devotes so much time and energy to shouting at the rain was that he simply didn't get it. Well, I was wrong, Bob's problem isn't that he doesn't get it, Bob's problem is that he can't sell it!

We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them, and whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things, and two things only -- making you afraid of it, and telling you who's to blame for it! That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle-aged, middle-class, middle-income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk them about family and American values and character, and you wave an old photo of the President's girlfriend, and you scream about patriotism, you tell them she's to blame for their lot in life, and you go on television, and you call her a whore.

Andrew Shepard (Michael Douglas), The American President

"Palin also made a point of mentioning that she loved to visit the "pro-America" areas of the country (emphasis mine), of which North Carolina is one. No word on which states she views as unpatriotic."

• what geographic lines might the sides be split along?
• what might be the outcome?
• how would other nations react?
• could our nation actually fail from within?

”Though I am flattered that Governor Palin has chosen to cite me as a source of wisdom, what I said had nothing to do with politics. This is yet another example of McCain and Palin distorting the truth, and all the more reason to remember that this campaign is not about gender, it is about which candidate has an agenda that will improve the lives of all Americans, including women.

The truth is, if you care about the status of women in our society and in our troubled economy, the best choice by far is Obama-Biden.”

"There it is. That's the ten word answer my staff's been looking for for two weeks. There it is. Ten-word answers can kill you in political campaigns. They're the tip of the sword.

Here's my question: What are the next ten words of your answer? Your taxes are too high? So are mine. Give me the next ten words. How are we going to do it? Give me ten after that, I'll drop out of the race right now.

Every once in a while... every once in a while, there's a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong, but those days almost always include body counts. Other than that, there aren't very many unnuanced moments in leading a country that's way too big for ten words.

I'm (running for the Vice-)President of the United States, not the (Vice-)President of the people who agree with me. And by the way, if the left has a problem with that, they should vote for somebody else."

"The West Wing" Game On (2002)