On the election of Scott Brown:

The Democrats, starting with the president, want to explain it all away. . . . [as] the result of some kind of anger. . . .
Every time the Republicans succeed, it’s all about anger and irrationality. When you had the Gingrich revolution 16 years ago, it was called “the year of the angry white male” and Peter Jennings declared on the evening news that the country had thrown a tantrum — as if when conservatives win it can only be an expression of irrationality and emotionalism.
Of course, when Obama wins in ‘08, it’s hope and change and peace and light and all the goodness in the American soul.
This was an election about substance and the Democrats lost on substance.

On the homeland-security hearings on Capitol Hill on the treatment of the Christmas bomber as a civilian and the lack of interrogation by the HIG:

On Day One, literally a year ago today . . . the president signed an executive order ostentatiously against torture. And involved in that was establishing a way to interrogate important detainees.
And that was established in midyear — this HIG [High-Value Interrogation Group], which is in the FBI, but the oversight is provided in the White House.
Now, we learned — now a half a year later — that the HIG isn’t even in place. And secondly, what we just heard [that the HIG was intended to be used abroad only], that nobody had even thought of what happens if you capture a terrorist in the United States. . . . This is absolutely unbelievable.
The real scandal here is not that a guy with a bomb got on a plane. It can happen in any bureaucracy, [any] administration. But the scandal is what happened after — treating him as an ordinary criminal.