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" Here is a pretty good rule of thumb for Democratic Presidents: if it didn't work for Franklin D. Roosevelt, who won four terms and a World War, it probably won't work for you either. "
Jon Meacham
You
War
World
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" If a person is homosexual by nature - that is, if one's sexuality is as intrinsic a part of one's identity as gender or skin color - then society can no more deny a gay person access to the secular rights and religious sacraments because of his homosexuality than it can reinstate Jim Crow. "
Jon Meacham
Gender
Society
Nature
" Whoever rises to deliver the inaugural Address of 2013 will speak to a nation in which the American Dream is under profound economic and cultural pressure. This is perhaps best measured by the state of the middle class. "
Jon Meacham
American
Speak
Best
" The past always seems somehow more golden, more serious, than the present. We tend to forget the partisanship of yesteryear, preferring to re-imagine our history as a sure and steady march toward greatness. "
Jon Meacham
Serious
More
Past
" I've been accused of being old before my time more than once. It's true that I've always felt an affinity for, and been comfortable around, older people. I attribute this to a childhood spent around my grandparents - and even a great-grandparent or two. I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything. "
Jon Meacham
Time
True
People
" Incumbent White House parties have won 10 of the last 18 presidential elections; the odds are tight, but they favor Obama in 2012. And so gloomy Democrats, check your despair; gleeful Republicans, watch the hubris. "
Jon Meacham
House
White
Watch
" It's possible that the 2012 general-election race will be the least overtly religious one since 1972, the last campaign before Roe v. Wade and the rise of Jimmy Carter brought evangelicalism into the political mainstream. That's because faith remains a complicated issue for Obama, who is still wrongly thought to be a Muslim in some quarters. "
Jon Meacham
Race
Thought
Rise
" Extremists often derive their inspiration from literal interpretations of texts that should rightly be read not as Associated Press reports from the ancient world, but as theological and literary enterprises requiring independent intellectual assessment. "
Jon Meacham
Press
World
Inspiration
" One of the earliest resurrection scenes in the Bible is that of Thomas demanding evidence - he wanted to see, to touch, to prove. Those who question and probe and debate are heirs of the apostles just as much as the most fervent of believers. "
Jon Meacham
Debate
Prove
Bible
" I do not believe 'Newsweek' is the only catcher in the rye between democracy and ignorance, but I think we're one of them, and I don't think there are that many on the edge of that cliff. "
Jon Meacham
Ignorance
Democracy
Believe
" We are now living in a post-Roosevelt, post-Reagan universe. What comes next will not be post-partisan, because faction is an intrinsic human impulse. "
Jon Meacham
Human
Living
Now
" The government invented the Internet. "
Jon Meacham
Invented
Government
Internet
" In the fullness of time, I suspect that bigotry against homosexuals will seem as repugnant as racial prejudice does today. Or so one hopes. "
Jon Meacham
Racial
Will
Today
" Anyone weighing whether to re-elect the President should take the bin Laden operation into account: it is a powerful exhibit that Obama is a steely Commander in Chief - a critical test for many Americans. "
Jon Meacham
President
Take
Test
" I am a southerner who grew up with and around guns. I own some still. My father gave me a .22 rifle when I was 9 and a single barrel .410 shotgun when I was 10. "
Jon Meacham
Own
Guns
Father
" The American Dream may be slipping away. We have overcome such challenges before. To recover the Dream requires knowing where it came from, how it lasted so long and why it matters so much. "
Jon Meacham
American Dream
American
Challenges
" Whenever there is news of a terrible shooting, I wonder why America has so miserably failed to enact even common-sense gun legislation. "
Jon Meacham
Wonder
News
Gun
" Given that religious faith is an intrinsic element of human experience, it is best to approach and engage the subject with a sense of history and a critical sensibility. "
Jon Meacham
Best
Experience
History
" Cynically but accurately put, Americans oppose public intervention or regulation if it helps others, but favor it if it helps them - take social security, disaster relief, public works projects, for example. "
Jon Meacham
Example
Security
Others
" Only the most unapologetic biblical fundamentalists, for instance, take every biblical injunction literally. If we all took all scripture at the same level of authority, then we would be more open to slavery, to the subjugation of women, to wider use of stoning. Jesus himself spoke out frequently against divorce in the strongest of terms. "
Jon Meacham
Women
Open
Slavery
" One of the central memories of my childhood is of hunting - not well; I am a terrible shot - quail and dove and grouse on a farm on the Tennessee River. "
Jon Meacham
River
Childhood
I Am
" Mysteries and thrillers are not the same things, though they are literary siblings. Roughly put, I would say the distinction is that mysteries emphasize motive and psychology whereas thrillers rely more heavily on action and plot. "
Jon Meacham
Same
Say
More
" The lesson of the Clinton years and of Obama's win of both the nomination and the general election in 2008 is that Democrats need to be as tough as JFK was. "
Jon Meacham
Tough
Lesson
Need
" An unexamined faith is not worth having, for fundamentalism and uncritical certitude entail the rejection of one of the great human gifts: that of free will, of the liberty to make up our own minds based on evidence and tradition and reason. "
Jon Meacham
Great
Tradition
Faith
" The problem for those who assert biblical authority in support of traditional definitions of marriage is that one could, with equal validity, assert that the lending of money or certain kinds of haircuts are forbidden by God, or that slavery and the subjugation of women are authorized by the Lord. "
Jon Meacham
Support
God
Marriage
" From Jefferson to Jackson to Lincoln to FDR to Reagan, every great president inspires enormous affection and enormous hostility. We'll all be much saner, I think, if we remember that history is full of surprises and things that seemed absolutely certain one day are often unimaginable the next. "
Jon Meacham
Day
Great
History
" The American system of political spending is so unregulated that it might make Adam Smith rethink free markets. "
Jon Meacham
Make
Political
System
" Barack Obama is many things; among them, he is a tough and even ferocious political warrior. "
Jon Meacham
Warrior
Things
Tough
" World War II ended the Great Depression with one of the great public-private industrial collaborations in the history of man. "
Jon Meacham
Depression
Man
History
" It is true that traditional Christianity is losing some of its appeal among Americans, but that is a religious, not political, matter. It is worth remembering that the Jeffersonian 'wall of separation' between church and state has always been intended to protect the church from the state as much as the state from the church. "
Jon Meacham
True
Church
Political
" The central tenet of Christianity as it has come down to us is that we are to reach out when our instinct is to pull inward; to give when we want to take; to love when we are inclined to hate; to include when are tempted to exclude. "
Jon Meacham
Love
Want
Reach