Robert Gates: “He would be candid and honest, willing to tell the President straight from the shoulder what he needs to hear.”

There has to be an agreement between the president and the Congress on actually what has to be done to recapture our industrial-military industrial capabilities.

Putin feels that he has a destiny to recreate the Russian Empire.

I think appearances do matter.

I think the president is — based on what I read — is getting the sense that, as he put it, that Putin is 'tapping' him along.