I wake up every morning literally with a smile on my face, grateful for another day I never thought I'd see.
Dick Cheney
Reagan proved deficits don't matter.
It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you.
The good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States. Occasionally we have to operate in places where, all considered, one would not normally choose to go. But we go where the business is.
I worked for George Bush. I'm proud to have worked for him. I think that a lot of the most controversial things we did, that people didn't like and - and criticized us for, things like the terror surveillance program or the enhanced interrogation techniques, were things that allowed us to save lives.
Direct threats require decisive action.
There comes a time when deceit and defiance must be seen for what they are. At that point, a gathering danger must be directly confronted. At that point, we must show that beyond our resolutions is actual resolve.
From kindergarten to graduation, I went to public schools, and I know that they are a key to being sure that every child has a chance to succeed and to rise in the world.
No, I've always been impressed with the tremendous resilience of the American economy. I think over the years, over the decades, it's demonstrated this tremendous ability to take severe body blows, if you will, and bounce back.
I think that freedom means freedom for everyone. As many of you know, one of my daughters is gay, and it is something we have lived with for a long time in our family. I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish. Any kind of arrangement they wish.
Except for the occasional heart attack, I never felt better.
I'm one of those people who believes that part of the greatness of the United States is our private sector. It's what we do as private citizens for ourselves and our companies. And our economy is essentially the wonder of the world because, in fact, it's produced so much for us over the years. That's not government that does that.
I think the record speaks for itself. These are two individuals who have been for the war when the headlines were good and against it when their poll ratings were bad.
I am a deficit hawk.
When George Bush asked me to sign on, it obviously wasn't because he was worried about carrying Wyoming. We got 70 percent of the vote in Wyoming, although those three electoral votes turned out to be pretty important last time around.
It's not just Bin Laden or just those that are involved in the counterterrorism effort. We've gotta cast the net broader than that. But I think it's a - very special tribute that we all owe to the bravery and courage of the men and women in the intelligence and military business who performed so well to finally get it done.
You cannot be driven by the polls. The polls change all the time; they're easily manipulated by whoever wants to ask those poll questions; they go up; they go down.
Our adversaries - our Democratic adversaries - like to be able to portray the Republican Party as a bunch of wingnuts - narrow based, always have some agenda that's not attractive to the public... That's easier for them, and more fun, than dealing with their own problems. And I think their problems are significant.
President Bush gave me a tremendous opportunity to serve as the vice president. I enjoyed very much having the opportunity to be a part of his team. He told me at the outset, he wanted me to sign on to be a part of his team - and he was true to his word, kept it. He was tough. He was decisive. He was also a pretty good politician.
We were trying to get all of the planes down out of the sky. And we watched as the towers of the World Trade Center collapsed - something no one expected and anticipated. And you could sit there and see and be aware that thousands of people were at that moment being killed as a result of the terrorist attacks that struck the United States.
We've gotten a long way on missile defense. We know how to do it. We know how to take down incoming warheads, but we need to do a lot more work in order to be - to deploy a system that'll defend the United States against those kinds of limited strikes that might be possible by a nuclear armed North Korea or Iran.
I can think of a lot of words to describe Senator Kerry's position on Iraq; 'consistent' is not one of them.
The United States needs to be not so much loved as it needs to be respected. Sometimes, that requires us to take actions that generate controversy. I'm not at all sure that that's what the Obama administration believes.
In his years in Washington, Senator Kerry has been one vote of a hundred in the United States Senate - and fortunately on matters of national security he was very often in the minority.
You know, I've got experiences going back to the wage price controls in the Nixon administration where, in effect, we had what I think was a terrible mistake, in that case a Republican administration, where moved in and tried to control the wages, prices and profits of every enterprise in America. It was a huge mistake.
The Federal Reserve, the Treasury, all the regulator agencies - if there's a problem of the financial mechanism in society, the only one to fix it is government. They've got a legitimate role.
The plan was criticized by some retired military officers embedded in TV studios. But with every advance by our coalition forces, the wisdom of that plan becomes more apparent.
The Senator from Massachusetts has given us ample grounds to doubt the judgment and the attitude he brings to bear on vital issues of national security.
My own belief is that the way we grow the economy, create jobs, create wealth is in the private sector. The government doesn't do that.
I believe very deeply in the proposition that what we did in Iraq was the right thing to do. It was hard to do. It took a long time. There were significant costs involved.
Had the decision belonged to Senator Kerry, Saddam hussein would still be in power today in Iraq. In fact, Saddam Hussein would almost certainly still be in control of Kuwait.
The only thing left that shows I was a heart patient is I have a scar down the middle of my chest where they went in three times to do open heart surgery. I have a brand new heart inside, and all the mechanical and electronic gear and so forth is all gone.
I reached a point towards the end on the old heart where I had trouble getting out of a chair. All I wanted to do was get out of bed in the morning and walk to my office and sit back down in the chair. Now I throw 50 pound bags of horse feed in the back of my pickup truck and I don't even think about it. I'm back doing those things.
And the fact of the matter is there were thousands of people that went through those training camps in Afghanistan. We know they are seeking deadlier weapons - chemical, biological and nuclear weapons if they can get it.
Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy.
The Iraqi forces are conducting the Mother of all Retreats.
I did my 40 years in Washington, 40-plus, and it's time to pause and reflect and think about what I've seen and done.
If we have reason to believe someone is preparing an attack against the U.S., has developed that capability, harbours those aspirations, then I think the U.S. is justified in dealing with that, if necessary, by military force.
I was convinced that eventually I would die of heart disease, that we'd run out of time and out of treatment, the technology wouldn't keep ahead of my disease. And now all of the sudden, when you get the new heart, your life opens up before you again.
I think we need a very, very serious effort, primarily through tax policy to provide incentives and encouragement for people to save and invest and expand their businesses and to create more jobs. The kind of thing we did in the early Reagan years, 30 years ago. I think that's essential.
We urge all democratic nations and the United Nations to answer the Iraqi Governing Council's call for support for the people of Iraq in making the transition to democracy.
We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.
Senator Kerry says he sees two Americas. It makes the whole thing mutual - America sees two John Kerrys.
I'm absolutely convinced that the threat we face now, the idea of a terrorist in the middle of one of our cities with a nuclear weapon, is very real and that we have to use extraordinary measures to deal with it.
There's every reason to believe there will be further attacks attempted against the United States. For us to spend so much time patting ourselves on the back because we got bin Laden that we miss the next attack would be a terrible tragedy.
I think the key that happened on 9/11 is we went from considering terrorist attacks as a law enforcement problem to considering terrorist attacks, especially on the scale we have on 9/11, as being an act of war.
I've worked for four presidents and watched two others up close, and I know that there's no such thing as a routine day in the Oval Office.
I mean, it's not just one day you get up, bang, and you got Osama bin Laden. It's the kind of thing where an awful lot of people over a long period of time - thousands have worked this case and these issues and followed on the leads and captured bad guys and interrogated them and so-forth.
In terms of asking questions, I plead guilty. I ask a hell of a lot of questions. That's my job.
You can't fall back on the private sector and say, 'You take care of the nation's banking system.' That's a fundamental function of the government, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury and the FDIC, etc. All of those agencies have a major role to play there.
