Arianna Huffington: Rep. Bachmann Was a 'Colorful Distraction'
Below you can find some of the notable comments made Sunday on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." Our powerhouse roundtable guests included former deputy chief of staff and senior adviser to President George W. Bush Karl Rove, Bloomberg TV contributor and former Obama White House senior adviser David Plouffe, editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group Arianna Huffington, PBS' "Washington Week" moderator and managing editor Gwen Ifill, Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul Gigot, ABC News global affairs anchor Christiane Amanpour, TIME International editor Bobby Ghosh and vice president of new initiatives at the Woodrow Wilson Center Aaron David Miller.
Huffington says Rep. Bachmann, a 'colorful distraction,' can continue to 'grandstand' outside of Congress
HUFFINGTON: But what is interesting, is that basically, like Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann was a sort of colorful distraction. She had no legislative record. She didn't really do anything in the House that she cannot do outside the House. A lot of her career was based on grandstanding. So she can continue doing that.
Christiane Amanpour on Syria's Civil War, considers it a 'huge humanitarian catastrophe'
AMANPOUR: A year ago, President Clinton, former President Clinton, a year ago, when there were 10,000 dead in Syria, said that the longer we leave this, the worse it will be and the more bad actors will come in.
Now, 80,000 people dead. In one year that's 70,000 people who've been killed. There is a huge humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Syria beyond our eyes, because we can see it. And this is what is happening right now. And the bad actors are in there, both on the rebels' side and Assad's side, Hezbollah and Iran.
Huffington outraged by 'gulag' like system of detention and deportation
HUFFINGTON: But also we need some accountability, David, because right now, this goes right against what the - what the president professes to believe in, that detention and deportation system, it is an absolute nightmare for families. It's a bit like a gulag.
Gigot finds the link between IRS and Holder scandals, it's 'coercive power of the state'
GIGOT: The common theme here - the common theme here between the IRS scandals and the Holder problems is the coercive power of the state. That is - the president has been trying to redefine government in a benign way, expanded it and say, you know what, it's really good for you. Well, sometimes it can be but often, it comes with a punch in the jaw. It comes with coercive power. That's what happened in both of these cases.
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