The Brief

The Monday Brief is online!

“The mania for giving the Government power to meddle with the private affairs of cities or citizens is likely to cause endless trouble, through the rivalry of schools and creeds that are anxious to obtain official recognition, and there is great danger that our people will lose our independence of thought and action which is the cause of much of our greatness, and sink into the helplessness of the Frenchman or German who expects his government to feed him when hungry, clothe him when naked, to prescribe when his child may be born and when he may die, and, in time, to regulate every act of humanity from the cradle to the tomb, including the manner in which he may seek future admission to paradise.” —Mark Twain

“When the entertainment mogul David Geffen, once a Clinton supporter, called both Bill and Hillary liars, Hillary not only decried the remark as a particularly vivid example of the ‘politics of personal destruction,’ but she demanded that Barack Obama do the same—and return a $2,300 donation Mr. Geffen had given him. Yet when Mrs. Clinton herself was asked to repudiate the abuse of Gen. Petraeus, she either saw no reason to do so or, much more likely, was afraid to alienate an important constituency, the 3.3 million members of MoveOn.org. She would, it seems, rather be president than right... The MoveOn.org ad was the moment for Mrs. Clinton to rise above hackdom... That moment is gone...” —Richard Cohen

Check it out here.

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