Overheard

They [Mormons] are very adept at not being fazed and speaking fluently and gracefully. Why? Because every single male who's a Mormon goes on a mission for two years when they're 19 or 20. They learn how to deflect blows and stay on message. . . . So when you see Mitt Romney, he's already been practicing how to deflect blows and stay on message. But it's plastic.

Actor Robert Redford
Washington Times, Nov. 8, 2007

This country is not a theocracy. . . . The Democratic Party believes that everybody in this room ought to be comfortable being an American Jew, not just an American; that there are no bars to heaven for anybody; that we are not a one-religion nation; and that no child or member of a football team ought to be able to cringe at the last line of a prayer before going onto the field.

Howard Dean, Chair
Democratic National Committeev JTA, Nov. 12, 2007

Several presidential candidates, including Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Mike Huckabee, are offering a faith-based social policy vision that reads like a page from Mr. Bush's 2000 presidential campaign hymnal.

John S. DiIulio Jr.
former White House "faith czar" Wall Street Journal, Nov. 10, 2007

If any political leaders really cared, they would advocate pulling the plug on a 1-year failed voucher experiment that appears to be doing more harm than good, producing the lowest reading scores in the nation.

Then we could put those millions of dollars into Wisconsin public school classrooms, where they are desperately needed to teach the overwhelming majority of black students how to read.

Columnist Joel McNally
The Capital Times, Oct. 6-7, 2007

Consider how Pat Robertson's endorsement of Rudy Giuliani late week was met with the predictable value-free political analysis to which we have grown so accustomed. This will certainly help Rudy's attempt to win over evangelicals, we were told, and doesn't it show how divided the religious right is over the presidential campaign? . . .

Try to imagine what would have happened if Hillary Clinton had called a press conference to announce that she had secured the endorsement of Minister Louis Farrakhan.

Columnist Paul Waldham
Prospect.org, Nov. 14, 2007

. . . happily the government of the United States . . . gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance. . . .

Everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.

President George Washington to Hebrew Congregation of Newport, R.I.
"A Nation of Christians is Not a Christian Nation" by Jon Meacham
New York Times, Oct. 7, 2007