I am a pretty level-headed person, but that person, Harry Reid, has been the most destructive entity in Washington when it comes to civility. By far.
Right now, as I'm typing this, some liberal somewhere is saying something unforgivable about Michelle Bachmann or Ann Coulter. I condemn you, whoever you are! But I'm not going to conduct a house-to-house search to find you.
I understand why people could look at things that Donald Trump says and be deeply offended by them and feel that he is not looking out for their best interests.
Politics is so personal, vicious and immediate, how are you going to get anything done? Even the local politics where I live have gotten so ugly.
I thought that Donald Trump's ascendancy would end when he attacked John McCain, saying he's not a war hero. I found that shocking, for him to say that.
You have to admit that Trump is endlessly creative. He has insulted the disabled, the dead, the parents of the dead, women, Mexicans, Muslims, Asians, African Americans, former POWs, the media and, to get just a bit more specific, 'The Post.'
In America... it's not divided, but with Trump now, it's like you are asking for trouble. We wouldn't dare to say any of the things he is saying in our country and get away with it. It's just... blasphemy.
The language has changed. When I grew up and watched the campaigns of John Kennedy, even with Richard Nixon, there was a lot higher level of civility. Now we describe a disagreement as an attack.
I have a sustained distrust for all politicians, even those with whom I agree on more issues than not.
“The American people... are tired of the politics of personal destruction
It is an outrage that Donald Trump can swear and scream on national television and no one says boo about how he presents himself.
Unquestionably, American political rhetoric can be repugnant, and the Right can certainly be as guilty as the Left.
We have Democrats saying dumb things every single day, and Republicans as well.
American political life has reached the stage where a vocal and powerful group uses "liberal" as a term of contempt.... Never before in our history has this been true. Liberals and conservatives have disagreed and, on occasion, have stoutly fought each other; but not in the lifelong recollection of the speaker has any similar attempt been made to convert an honorable word for a socially useful attitude into a sling of mud to be thrown at a political opponent.
I think the country's getting disgusted with Washington partly because of the decline of civility in government.
On the other side, I do believe that the rhetoric we are seeing from the Democrats today is unprecedented, is a new low in presidential politics and goes beyond political discourse and amounts to political hate speech.
Conservatives and companies condoned Rush Limbaugh's politics of personal destruction when it came to smearing elected officials. 'Fair game,' they said, even when crass and crude. That's just the way it is.
One of the things that is worrisome about politics is the lack of civility.
When President Ronald Reagan asked me a stupid question once, I called him an idiot in public! I thought I was going to be arrested, but he laughed and appreciated me.
If you only take offense when the president of your party is compared to Hitler, then you're part of the problem.
Donald Trump has defined himself very well, not only in the primary election where he was absolutely disrespectful to his colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle and for Fiorina, who he basically said, 'Who would vote for you? Look at her face.'
The wrong Democratic reaction to a stupid Republican utterance is to play hurt.
It's a sad commentary on where politics is today. If someone disagrees with you, you're either Attila the Hun or a leftist liberal.
In 2008, I spoke out against calling the president a Muslim as if that was a curse. And then in 2012, once again, I was very disturbed about some of the intolerance I was seeing in the party, so I made a statement saying there's a level of intolerance in some parts of the Republican Party. And there was, and I think there still is.
Trump crossed the line all the time. Flustered during the debate because he couldn't out-debate Clinton on policy, he just leaned into the mic and dismissed her entirely: 'nasty woman.'
