"[...] Mr. Obama has become a minor actor on Capitol Hill. On a growing array of issues, members of both parties have come to understand that progress is more likely with the president on the sideline. ... 

"There has been no movement in Congress on the president's carbon tax. During Saturday's budget debate, 79 senators supported repeal of ObamaCare's tax on medical devices and 62 senators backed construction of the Keystone XL pipeline (alas, both nonbinding votes). On issue after issue, Mr. Obama is being routinely ignored or rebuffed.  

"No president is ever irrelevant, but less than 10 weeks into his second term Mr. Obama's power is waning. Even members of his own party view him as an obstacle to getting things done."

"Republicans working to craft a comprehensive immigration reform bill say there is one rock-bottom requirement for any deal: The border must be secure, and proven to be secure, before any path to citizenship is created for the millions of immigrants currently in the country illegally.  That is the one non-negotiable GOP demand.  And on Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano flatly rejected it. 

"'Relying on one thing as a so-called trigger is not the way to go,' Napolitano told a breakfast meeting of journalists.  ... 

"Napolitano’s comments were one more bit of evidence, if Republicans needed any, that the Obama administration does not intend to make enhanced border security a precondition of immigration reform.  'Every position and action the administration takes is consistent with the idea that they have no desire to accomplish immigration security,' said one GOP Senate aide who spoke on condition of anonymity."

"The U.S. government is very unlikely to just seize money wholesale from people's bank accounts, as is being done in Cyprus. But does that mean that your life savings are safe? ... 

"When the federal government spends far beyond the tax revenues it has, it gets the extra money by selling bonds. The Federal Reserve has become the biggest buyer of these bonds, since it costs them nothing to create more money. 
 
"This new money buys just as much as the money you sacrificed to save for years. More money in circulation, without a corresponding increase in output, means rising prices. Although the numbers in your bank book may remain the same, part of the purchasing power of your money is transferred to the government. Is that really different from what Cyprus has done?"

"What the heck has happened to Paul Ryan?

"Just months removed from being on the GOP ticket, he has faded from the national political conversation in a way that’s remarkable for a politician possessed with youth, fame and ambition.

"This is partly by his choosing. Ryan, 43, has purposefully sought not to fan the 2016 flames and instead plunged headlong back into his work in the House. He’s been the anti-Palin: returning to his previous job with gusto and gladly immersing himself in the minutiae of governing."

"All through the Obama years, backers of the Affordable Care Act have lifted their spirits with a consistent refrain: Just you wait. 

"Someday, the law's backers insisted, Obamacare will make the transition from a divisive idea to a widely popular one, from a program that many people still find confusing and scary to a familiar and comforting part of American life. 

"This weekend, which marks the third anniversary of the law’s passage, one thing remains clear: Someday has not yet arrived, and may not for a long time."

"Want to know if Republicans finally back immigration reform, stand a chance of picking up Senate seats in the midterms, or get their act together by 2016? Instead of the GOP, watch the Rubio-Paul Party. 

"Forget John Boehner. Ignore Karl Rove. The real action in the GOP is coming from the newest wing of the party, the one born in the spring of 2009 - the offspring of Tea Party activists that almost single-handedly propelled Republicans to control of the House. 

"This new movement brought Marco Rubio and Rand Paul to Washington – and made them the two most potent forces in GOP politics today. It also brought Chris Christie to New Jersey and Scott Walker to Wisconsin – and made them two of the most potent forces for 2016."

"Advice to the RNC: Don’t 're-brand.' Fight.

"That’s it. Fight. Fight them on every front, fight them in every state, fight them on television and in print and on the airwaves. Confront them at every opportunity, seek out and embrace conflict, and fear not bullies like Chuck Schumer (the living embodiment of the Lefty Sneer), Dick Durbin, and passive-aggressive corruptocrats like Harry Reid. Don’t make nice with them, don’t play fair with them, don’t reach across the aisle and above all, treat them and their ideas with exactly the same amount of respect with which they treat yours: none. Contempt is the only language they understand. ...

"[...] Get in their face, harass them, worry them, give them not a moment’s peace or respite. Come at them constantly, in shifts and in waves. Never back down. But act like it’s fun while you’re doing it — that’s what being a 'happy warrior' means.
 
"You may lose, you may win. But at least fight."

"Our military destroyed Saddam's regime in three weeks with few casualties, effectively eliminating the threat the administration most feared. But we then blundered into an occupation that vastly raised the price of the insurance the war was intended to secure. 

"Those who argued that we should stand up an Iraqi interim government immediately after Baghdad fell were dismayed when the administration decided instead to send thousands of Americans to Iraq to run a country about which we knew little. We were asking for trouble and we got it. After four months of occupation a ruthless, bloody insurgency was launched that lasted for years and killed thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis. 

"The decision to remove Saddam was right. The decision to occupy Iraq was not. The failure to see the difference is to substitute hindsight for insight."

"If there was any villain at the just-completed Conservative Political Action Conference, it was the generic figure of the Republican political consultant.  Overpaid, unprincipled, always on the lookout for the next client — or easy mark — the consultants, to listen to a number of CPAC speakers, have helped bring the Republican Party to its current low state. ... 

"So yes, Republicans should look at the way they run their campaigns, and who they hire to do the work.  But in the long run, winning candidates win and losers lose, regardless of who the consultant is.  A good candidate has deeply-felt beliefs that guide how he runs — and how he chooses and uses campaign help.  At the moment, the Republican Party has far, far bigger problems than its consultant class."

"George W. Bush was excoriated for waterboarding exactly three terrorists, all of whom are now enjoying an extensive retirement on a sunny Caribbean island (though strolls beyond Gitmo’s gates are prohibited). Whereas President Obama, with thousands of kills to his name, evokes little protest from yesterday’s touch-not-a-hair-on-their-head zealots. Of whom, of course, Sen. Obama was a leading propagandist. 

"Such hypocrisy is the homage Democrats pay to Republicans when the former take office, confront national security reality, feel the weight of their duty to protect the nation — and end up doing almost everything they had denounced their predecessors for doing. The beauty of such hypocrisy, however, is that the rotation of power creates a natural bipartisan consensus on the proper conduct of this war."