On the president’s appearance before House Republicans at their retreat:

I thought it brought out the best of Obama. . . . He engaged in a fairly high-level debate on policy with his antagonists and he showed his best qualities as a fine analytic mind. He was able to phrase and to frame his opponents’ arguments in a clear way. And I thought he held his own quite well.
I do think it should be something we ought to consider institutionalizing. As we heard earlier, it is like prime minister’s question time in parliament but, of course, we don’t have a prime minister. We have a president who is half prime minister, half king.
So, instead, he gets, you know, the pomp and the circumstance of a State of the Union address, which is a one-way speech. . . . It’s supposed to be the equivalent of a throne speech in England, except that [here] it’s partisan and hectoring and argumentative.
I think it would be nice if he were to abolish the State of the Union addresses, have it as it was before Woodrow Wilson — have it written and submitted.
Instead have twice a year the meeting of the president with the opposition, not primetime but in the afternoon, like today, on television, but low-key. Have it once with opposition members of the House and once with opposition senators. I think it will help the president, whoever he is, and it certainly helped Obama today.

On the Obama administration’s plan to kill NASA’s Constellation program:

A perfect example of the difference between Kennedy liberalism — John Kennedy — and Obama. Kennedy was expansive, optimistic, adventuresome; Obama is constrained, inward-looking.
What it means is instead of having Americans walking on the moon or other outer worlds, we’re going to have NASA turning its cameras in, gazing on our navel, and we will be adjusting our thermostats.
I think it’s going to be really something we regret. We’re going to have no way to get into space. We’re going to rely on the Chinese, the Indians, and the Russians.