Ted Kaufman

I would argue that at this moment and at these times, with respect to the complexity of the problems on national security and the economy, that if you have a simple majority, the President deserves his nominees.

I was at a hearing yesterday on Afghanistan and the national police and the problem that we spent $8 billion and we have nothing to show for it.

What happens when you find out that 90 percent of all WaMu's home equity loans are stated income, and you find out that 73 percent of all Option ARMs are stated income, and 50 percent of your subprime loans are stated income?

Good fences make good neighbors, and I think good regulators work best when they have bright-line rules on what is OK and what is not OK.

We are a Nation of laws, not a Nation of everybody did it.

It causes me dismay that we failed.

Do you think it is hard for me to believe that you didn't know that 90 percent of all the home equity loans they were doing were stated income?

Isn't that kind of a cold-blooded way of letting everybody off the hook? This was a bad business decision.

I think, that not just here, but in credit default swaps, so much went on on Wall Street, we have rewarded people who essentially said, I know what is going wrong here, but I can't stop doing it because I am making so much money.

Corruption undermines everything that we are trying to achieve in that country and particularly with respect to police officials.

We cannot go into places and clear and hold, we cannot hold if we do not have the police to do it.

There is nothing we are working on that is more important than this right here.

If we do not do something, we are in dire shape over there.

The rule of law in most of these areas is because the police are so corrupt.

It is clear to me that what Admiral Mullen, Secretary Gates, and other leaders says, and as long as we maintain our capability, no one is going to take us on in a conventional war, no one.

What is going to happen is people more and more are going to take us on in battles--cyberspace is an example--economically.

I think Iraq is--when we look back in history--will be the place where we finally figured out how to deal with the bad guys in a new and creative way.

I think it is reasonable to believe that the minority knew what was coming and acted accordingly.

I have felt for many years that judicial activism is in the eye of the beholder.

We're the most powerful military, economic, and strategic political organization, diplomatic organization, in the world, in the history of mankind.

I personally called Al Jazeera and said: What you're doing is not only inaccurate, it's unprofessional; how can you do that?

I think we really have to take a hard look at the security, because clearly this is what the terrorists want us to do.

I believe we are on the brink of a foreign policy success in Iran if we would use public diplomacy the way it should be used.

There are more people in the Army bands than there are in the entire Foreign Service.

Public diplomacy today is not being taken seriously enough as a tool of national security.