LT. COL. RALPH PETERS: If our president sent our troops, tripled down in Afghanistan, and never believed in the mission, never believed it could work, but, for the last five years has allowed our soldiers and Marines and Navy Corpsmen to be killed or maimed in a war the president doesn't believe makes sense, or that he doesn't believe he could win

"I think there's a pattern at MSNBC of them hiring Black mediocrities like Melissa Harris-Perry, Michael Eric Dyson, Touré, and, of course — the granddaddy of them all — Al Sharpton, simply to race-bait," Wall Street Journal's said on WSJ's Political Diary program.

GEORGE WILL: Bob Gates is one of the great public figures of the last 50 years. He may not be a great author because he seems to have produced a somewhat schizophrenic book, judging by the excerpts, which are ample at this point. He says the president is failing to lead but has made a decision to go after bin Laden one of the most courageous -- the

REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE (D-TX): So the safety net has to be something for all of us. And as I borrow this from my good friend from California, just to show you a line of Americans possibly looking for work, we cannot point out and we cannot know at this point which one of these are near the edge of poverty or living in poverty simply because they c

CHRIS MATTHEWS: I just look at the string of firings that's already taken place, David Corn. And I look at it, you know, a guy loses the big $250,000 a year job you put him into, the other guy for $130,000 a year, another big civil job working at the bridge, and now he's pretty much targeted his deputy chief of staff, Bridget Kelly. How many more p

JAY CARNEY: As we noted yesterday, the president greatly appreciates Secretary Gates's service, to the president's administration and to the country. Secretary Gates was part of a team here that helped bring about an end to the Iraq war. That helped decide upon and implement a far superior and improved policy in Afghanistan that was much more clear

BRIT HUME: If you can get past wondering why Bob Gates stayed as long as he did in an administration about which he harbored such profound misgivings, his revelations have an unmistakable ring of truth. The most damning of his charges -- that President Obama, even as he surged 30,000 additional men and women into the war in Afghanistan, had little

SENATOR MARCO RUBIO: My mother was one of seven girls whose parents often went to bed hungry so their children wouldn’t. My father lost his mother when he was nine. He left school and went to work at a local restaurant at about the same age of my youngest son now. My parents, like most people that have ever lived, were raised in a country wher

Daily Show: Colorado lays down the ground rules for its "brand new" recreational weed industry, Jon Stewart reacts.

CHUCK TODD: This quote is one of the most intriguing in the book: "Hillary told the president that her opposition to the 2007 surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary." Of course, it was a caucus. This only reinforces one of the biggest knocks against Hillary Clinton, that she will say and do anyt

JAKE TAPPER: The criticisms are fairly strong. Most people have not read the book, most people have only seen the excerpts, the excerpts, of course, as reporters do, are the most controversial parts of the book. There's a lot in the book that could be very damaging, in terms of, first of all, Vice President Biden's prospects, the former Secreta

Former NBA star Charles Barkley says smoking marijuana did nothing for him except make him giggle and eat potato chips.

CHUCK TODD: Going back to Biden, this is the second book in three months where the president in some way had to defend, buck up, whatever you want to describe it, when it comes to Joe Biden’s place in this. Why do you think it is that Biden has been derided negatively in a couple of these books? JAY CARNEY: I’m not sure I agree with that a

Former senior adviser to President Obama and NBC News senior political analyst David Axelrod says he was surprised by the criticism from former Defense Secretary Bob Gates about the White House administration in an upcoming memoir. "I’m not suggesting that [former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates] made things up to sell a book, but I think th

"I think, frankly, that it's suspicions confirmed in my case," Sen. John McCain (R-Ari.) said about Robert Gates' new book on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV. "I was a great admirer of Secretary Gates. We didn't always agree, but I don't know of any finer man who has served the country as far as national security is concerned."

REP. STENY HOYER (D-MD): "Today, thanks to the War on Poverty, infant mortality has plummeted, childhood malnutrition has fallen significantly, and college graduation rates have risen. The poverty rate for senior citizens in 1959 was 35%. By 2012, this rate had fallen to just 9%, thanks to New Deal and Great Society programs. Food stamps continue t

"If U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman decided to be as creative as Christie used to be back when Christie was U.S. attorney, he could go after some of these people," Star-Ledger columnist Paul Mulshine told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV. "Now, I don't think normal political retribution is a crime, because half of the politicians in the country w

President Obama's former Chief of Staff Bill Daley joins the "CBS This Morning" co-hosts to respond to former Defense Secretary Robert Gates memoir "Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War," about the White House and its strategy in the war in Afghanistan. "This rush to do books by people who leave an administration while the administration is ongoi

Chris Hayes uncovers FBI data demonstrating that Bill O'Reilly is mistaken about his belief that very few people are arrested for marijuana possession. This mistake is indicative of a larger ignorance.

Al Sharpton points out a little bit of Republican hypocrisy on "offset cuts" and hosts Rep. Jim McDermott and Abby Huntsman in a discussion about the need for unemployment benefits.

Bill O'Reilly outlines the chaos unfolding around the world and offers some advice to President Obama about how he can handle it.

Nina Easton, Kirsten Powers, and Charles Krauthammer discuss the president's latest policy pivot.