Political Quotes

“I believe sometimes we have these problems by a misuse of terms. And in this connection, a few years back, when drug policy was a higher order of priority, we had what was, I think, misnamed as a ``war on drugs,'' sincerely carried out by men and women who felt that drugs were a plague on our society creating a tremendous amount of crime, social dislocation, wasted lives. But the implication, when they used that term, was that it somehow or other could have been won permanently and decisively. I believe that we made the same mistake a generation ago when we began a war against poverty with the same implications. Just set up a few programs and you will get rid of the circumstance. Perhaps, it has occurred to me, that this began because we have had truly wars where they have a beginning, middle, and an end, whether it was World War II, at one level, or even a half-a-century-long cold war. It is over. We have had a definitive triumph.”