David Gergen

But, Anderson, this has the ring of -- 100 hours, of course, is -- is reminiscent of the 100 days of Franklin Roosevelt.

I also think that with Barack Obama, he represents the future. He represents a new chapter.

The biggest threat John Edwards poses, and it's a serious threat, is to Barack Obama.

He's staking his political future on that right now.

There's nothing you can do. You can't attack him. And it's conceivable that she might even want him to be a running mate.

I think there's actually going to be more cooperation on Capitol Hill between Republicans and Democrats than there is going to be between Democrats on Capitol Hill and the president.

There are some areas. I think the president may well emphasize energy next week or two weeks from now in his State of the Union.

Oh, I think this is much more about her laying out a path forward, you know, the various, you know, the pros and cons of what she's trying to do.

Every sign points to the fact that within the next couple of weeks, Barack Obama is going to declare -- and around the same time period or shortly thereafter, that Mrs. Clinton is going to declare...

To have this survey come out now pretty reliable survey of career military people, showing support for the president down to 35 percent. It means he's sort of losing all fronts.

Symbolically very, very important. It's a grim beginning to the New Year, a faithful year for this president and for this war. And I think it makes it much tougher as the president faces his vow to come to the country and try and persuade…

I think he's boxed himself in now over this process. It's been a long drawn out process, too long. He's lost control of the politics of this process and decision making.

Well constitutionally he does have the power as Commander-in-Chief to keep the troops there. But if only a dozen or so Republican senators... actually support a troop surge and Democrats almost uniformly against it... that means his…

Absolutely. President Ford has said several times since then, Anderson, that he was being consumed as president by -- he once explained to a group of students that I was with that -- he said, look, 80 percent of my time was being devoted…

I think it's the only way, Anderson, he can persuade the military to do what he looks like he wants to do.

the Democrats need to show some sense of what they really believe that they want to show that there are constructive opposition to that.

If he truly intends to increase the number of troops, he'd better have results pretty darn fast.

the confidence levels in his handling of this war have plummeted.

It's doubling down your bet, isn't it?

this president, you know, is nothing, if not resolute and, let me say, overly stubborn and in denial about the nature of things there.

the Democrats have to step up to this.

Clearly they plan to do a lot of back seat driving on Iraq. But they're going to let the president keep his hand on the wheel. And you know, they don't have much confidence in his steering.

the president administration of Republicans will bear most of that.

It may not work, but there's no percentage in actually increasing the number of troops.

The president is saying, look, I see that things are not going well.