Lingua publica
The
good and the bad...presented with permission from The Patriot E-Journal
web posted February 19, 2007
"Critics of the Bush administration's conduct of the war in Iraq have long demanded that he admit his mistakes. But they have not admitted their own past mistakes, much less admit the potentially catastrophic mistake they will make in the future if they make it impossible to sustain military operations there." -- Thomas Sowell
"You have to be amused by the Democrats' antics -- after all, these are the same people who made a career out of blocking up-or-down votes on the confirmation of hordes of constitutionalist nominees to the federal courts. And now they are back at it, blocking a full debate on the war and the vital issue of funding our troops in harm's way and having the gall to say it's the Republicans doing the blocking." -- Michael Reagan
"[I]t is significant that in [Hillary] Clinton's case, for the past 30 years, from 1978 through 2007 -- which is to say throughout most, almost all, of her adulthood -- her view of America, and of American life, came through the tinted window of a limousine. (Now the view is, mostly, through the tinted window of an SUV.)...[H]er life has been eased and cosseted by... aides, drivers, cooks, Secret Service, etc. Her life has been lived within a motorcade. And so she didn't have to worry about crime, the cost of things, the culture. Status incubates." -- Peggy Noonan
"Most of us aren't reading the science, or even a precis of the science. We're just reading a constant din from the press that ‘the science is settled,' and therefore we no longer need to think about it: The thinking has been done for us. Last week's UN IPCC ‘report,' for example, is not the report, but a political summary thereof." -- Mark Steyn
"We love good mayors because we love our cities and [Rudy] Giuliani is a city guy... I'm so sick of Southern guys with ranches running this country. I want a guy to run for president who doesn't have a f***ing ranch..." -- MSNBC's Chris Matthews on the Don Imus radio show
"Having lost in Vietnam, many Americans cannot bear the thought of another defeat. That's why the stakeholders in the current conflict -- the president and his party, principally -- cannot bring themselves to accept the fact that the Iraq war is lost." -- Newsweek's Eleanor Clift playing the role of Walter Cronkite
"I know what [Newt] Gingrich tells people privately, I know what [Tom] DeLay tells people privately, I know what Karl Rove tells people privately. I'm the one person they are most afraid of. Bill and I have beaten them before and we will again." -- Hillary Clinton
"We shy away from any kind of conflict and any kind of bloodshed, and we will be sad by such. We are opposed to any kind of conflict and as we have said repeatedly we think the world problem can be solved through dialogue, the use of logic and a sense of friendship. There is no need for the use of force." -- Iran's Mahmud Ahmadi-Nejad, who has repeatedly threatened to destroy Israel
"Public policy is all about trade-offs. Economists understand this better than politicians because voters want to have their cake and eat it too, and politicians think whatever is popular must also be true." -- Jonah Goldberg
"John Edwards refused Friday to fire bloggers who once slammed the Catholic Church. They're doing a great job for him. It's all over the Internet that Barack Obama's middle name is Hussein and that Al Gore has the same first name as al-Qa'ida." -- Argus Hamilton
"The rumor in Hollywood right now is that Al Gore may announce that he is running for president during a speech at the Academy Awards. That's right; they found a way to make Oscar speeches even more boring." -- Conan O'Brien
"To see how liberal history is created, you need to tune into the nut-cable stations and watch their coverage of the Scooter Libby trial. On MSNBC they're covering the trial like it's the Normandy Invasion, starring Elvis Presley, as told by Joseph Goebbels." -- Ann Coulter
"When a pol prefaces an answer to a question with the emphatic assertion that he or she ‘wants to be very clear about this,' you can put it down that you've wandered into a suburb of Obfuscation City." -- Wesley Pruden
"In an interview with USA Today, Senator Barack Obama says the shortness of his political resume is his 'greatest strength.' Politics is the only business where people brag about how little experience they have. Can you imagine guys saying to you, 'Look, I've never been to medical school, I've never even watched E.R., but if you just let me try and do this brain operation I'll do the best job I can.'" -- Jay Leno
web posted February 12, 2007
"Drawing the lessons from our 20th-century confrontation with totalitarian menaces, Ronald Reagan counseled that weakness is provocative. That insight is eternal. Today, America has the economic and military capacity to lead the world -- but our psychological fitness for the part is in serious doubt. There is no end to the malevolent forces who will be eager to fill the role if we decline it..." -- Mona Charen
"The American left has long deplored Bush's rhetorical reliance on such vulgar conceits as ‘good' and ‘evil.' But it seems even ‘victory' is a problematic concept, and right now the momentum is all for defeat of one kind or another." -- Mark Steyn
"In Iowa last weekend, Sen. Clinton showed why she shouldn't -- and I believe won't -- be president. She deliberately misled the audience about her vote to authorize President Bush to use force against Saddam Hussein." -- Cal Thomas
"Republicans should be able to declare that Islamo-Nazi terror must be defeated and destroyed, not understood, not appeased, and not just negotiated to a standstill." -- Michael Medved
"Societies at war cannot wait for bombs to be phoned in to 911. We must stop the Islamists before they strike. That in turn means knowing who they are, what they say, and where they are. Even if we would rather not." -- Jeff Jacoby
"I'm proud... to be the first African-American coach to win [the Super Bowl], but again, more than anything...[Chicago Bears head coach] Lovie Smith and I are not only African-American but also Christian coaches, showing you can do it the Lord's way. And we're more proud of that." -- Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy
"Well, our job is to bash the President, that's what we do..." -- Newsweek's Evan Thomas
"The House passed a $463.5 billion spending bill Wednesday that covers about one-sixth of the federal budget as Democrats cleared away the financial mess they inherited from Republicans." -- An obviously unbiased Associated Press
"Actually [Hillary Clinton is] really a panderer and a flatterer. As she goes around the country, you'll see more of that." -- Ralph Nader, considering another run if Hillary gets the Democratic nod
"Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced he's starting a joint energy research project with Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. Actually, the man's name is Rod Benson, but Arnold pronounces it ‘Blagojevich'." -- Conan O'Brien
"If [Scooter] Libby were a Democrat, we would know the sexual proclivities of everyone in Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's office, Judith Miller would be portrayed as a ‘stalker,' Tim Russert's cat would be dead, and the public would know about every toupee at MSNBC." -- Ann Coulter
"We are witnessing Hillary's campaign at its zenith. Starting in Iowa last week she has been racing to the left on the Iraq situation and no one -- NO one -- thinks she truly believes a single thing she has said in the past two weeks." -- Rich Galen
"If [Reid, Pelosi, and Bush] were to bake a cake together, Reid would want credit for the ingredients and the color of the icing. Pelosi would want to make sure the cake was big enough to feed everybody. And Bush would compliment them on the cake, then go grill a steak." -- Tom Purcell
"Hillary says the president should ‘talk to bad people' to see what they want (the ‘bad people' have already said exactly what they want, loud and clear). John Edwards says he would get tough as president, and if talk doesn't work he'll talk some more. But of course. Isn't that what senators do?" -- Wesley Pruden
"[F]inger pointing isn't the same thing as soul searching." -- W. James Antle III
"Hillary Clinton is hard out on the campaign trail. Hillary is expected to attract the woman vote and, of course, Bill will attract 'the other woman' vote. So between the two of them they should have the female vote locked up. ... Is anybody really that surprised that Hillary Clinton is running for president? I'm not surprised. I mean, if you were married to Bill Clinton, wouldn't you want to be able to tap his phone, read his mail, and torture him?" -- Jay Leno
"It might seem at first glance that the left wing of the Democratic Party should be in the forefront to fight radical Islam. Islamic radicals despise women's rights and gay rights. I think we all know what they would do with Hillary Clinton or Barney Frank. [Their] reluctance to support the war on terror... has nothing to do with cultural relativism or multiculturalism. It has everything to do with domestic politics. Basically the left hates Bush more than it hates Bin Laden... Consider the war in Iraq. This war is tough going in Iraq. But it is even tougher going in America. The war is being lost not on the streets of Baghdad but right here in America... There is no way that Bin Laden could persuade America to give up on the war on terror and get out of Iraq and the Middle East. Fortunately for Bin Laden he has a whole political movement in the United States that is dedicated to exactly this objective." -- Dinesh D'Souza on his new book, The Enemy At Home
"So let's get this straight, during a week in which Democrats are pushing a resolution that states, ‘it is not in the national interest of the United States to deepen its military involvement in Iraq,' they believe that securing Speaker Pelosi [a transcontinental luxury jet] is in the national interest?" -- Republican Study Committee spokesman Brad Dayspring
web posted February 5, 2007
"The claim to support the troops is a sham. Supporting the troops is merely something to be figured out later. It's an afterthought, to be addressed after Democrats, with some Republican support, rush through a resolution telling our troops that the mission for which they are putting their lives on the line is not just meaningless but absolutely antithetical to our nation's interests." -- Mark Finkelstein
"Our combat forces have never lost an engagement in Iraq. Let's make sure they don't lose the war in Washington. Unshackle the military and let our soldiers and Marines do their job. This will quickly silence the critics, as well as the insurgents and radical Islamist fundamentalists." -- James A. Lyons, Jr.
"[President] Bush came up with the ‘surge' plan. Will it work? Nobody knows. But the one thing the American people know about George W. Bush is that he wants to win the war. What the Democrats believe is anybody's guess." -- Jonah Goldberg
"What the resolution tells us is that most members of Congress, echoing what they think is the view of most voters, yearn to return to the holiday from history that we thought we were enjoying between the fall of the Berlin Wall and Sept. 11, 2001. And that they have no idea at all of how to get there." -- Michael Barone
"The Democrats have no idea what they stand for, the Republicans only remember what they stood for." -- Peggy Noonan
"If you believe the [Iraq] plan is... such a flop, then why did you vote to confirm General Petraeus, who is one of the architects of the plan?" -- NBC's Tim Russert to Chuck Schumer
"[H]ow can the public really buy the Democrats' support of the troops but don't support the mission? How can you do both?" -- NBC's David Gregory to Chuck Schumer
"[Saturday's anti-war protest] in Washington was like a day from yesteryear -- the war that to many seems long ago and far away: the war in Vietnam. Yesterday, hundreds of thousands of people descended on the capital to protest the war in Iraq." -- Bob Schieffer, slightly embellishing the numbers
"What the Democrats will do with their newfound power is a question worth asking, provided you don't expect much of an answer." -- William Rusher
"Last week, the senator [Kerry] took to the floor and reduced himself to tears as he announced that he'd regretfully decided not to run for president again. John Edwards shoveled him into the landfill of history with some oleaginous boilerplate about Kerry's readiness to ‘respond to any call to serve his country.' Was anybody calling?" -- Mark Steyn
"John Warner of Virginia, eager to demonstrate that he's no son of the hard, determined men who wrote the book on standing firm against all odds as a fabled army of northern Virginia, rushes to join partisans across the aisle to forge a resolution of regret, retreat and ruin. ‘Non-binding,' of course. Senators never bind themselves to anything but their egos and personal interests." -- Wesley Pruden
"Members of the 110th Congress are behaving like drunken drivers with respect to the conflict in Iraq, veering wildly all over the road, seemingly oblivious to the risk they pose to others. Before they do actual harm by voting on various resolutions aimed at repudiating President Bush and further undermining his wartime leadership, they should be obliged to sit through the sort of sobering, behavior-modification program to which courts assign those found operating heavy equipment while inebriated." -- Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
"John Edwards, who is also running for president, is being criticized because the new house he just moved into is one of the biggest houses in North Carolina. It's 28,000 square feet on 102 acres. See, Edwards became famous for talking about the two Americas. Now both of them can fit into his backyard." -- Jay Leno
web posted January 29, 2007
"Sen. Clinton ticked off the issues about which she is ticked off, because she says the Bush administration has failed to deal with them. They include health care, Social Security, Medicare and Iraq. The Bush administration has attempted to address all of these, but Democrats have blocked any progress. It's an old political trick. You work against success and then blame failure on the president." -- Cal Thomas
"In Congress, Democrats have decided to chip away at the war with various symbolic postures but not to oppose it outright: That way, if things go well, they can muscle in on the credit, but if things go badly, they'll be able to say they told you so without getting stuck with the blame." -- Mark Steyn
"Our political elite and chattering classes deserve a stiff rebuke for ignoring -- and encouraging the public to ignore -- the truth: In a global war for the Free World, there is nowhere to run." -- Frank Gaffney
"I find myself arguing with a whole bunch of people on the left who ‘know' things that aren't true. I'm both amused and surprised not only at the ignorance out there, but the confidence with which it is bandied about." -- Dinesh D'Souza
"Democratic California Assemblywoman Sally Lieber has announced that she will introduce a bill this week to make it a crime to spank children who are 3 years old or younger, punishable by up to a year in jail or a $1,000 fine. If this zany idea were to become law, California could be the place where the nanny state meets the authoritarian state." -- Debra Saunders
"[This] is a world in which facts always bow to feelings. What matters is not so much that you do good, but that you feel virtuous, or perhaps more to the point, are seen to be virtuous." -- Mona Charen
"I'm in and I'm in to win." -- Hillary Clinton, announcing her intention to seek the Democratic nod for 2008
"My whole book is written about Palestine and its lands, and about what is going on against the Palestinian people, which is, in my view, very similar, and in some cases even worse, than what happened to the blacks in South Africa...[We must] end the abominable and relatively unknown horrible prosecution -- or persecution of the Palestinian people." -- Jimmy Carter
"I wrote this book ['What a Party'] to remind people what the Clinton administration meant to us and the world. [The Clinton years showed how to] restore moral authority." -- Terry McAuliffe
"Obama is at that stage in Presidential politics which roughly equates to lighting a charcoal grill: You stack the briquettes, pour on the lighter fluid, throw in a match and... whoa! Smoke and fire and heat! Very exciting. But you can't cook a steak on that." -- Rich Galen
"It's possible that nothing is going to fix Iraq, but ‘Why can't we all just get along' parleys have about as much chance of bringing the factions together and ending Iranian and Syrian mischief as a rabbi has of being elected king of Saudi Arabia." -- Ralph Peters
"Stuart Taylor Jr., the liberal but brilliant legal reporter for the National Journal, described The New York Times' coverage of the Duke lacrosse rape case as ‘[w]orse, perhaps, than the other recent Times embarrassments.' For a newspaper that carries Maureen Dowd's column, that's saying something." -- Ann Coulter
"Peevish, dissatisfied, weary and dismissive: That's how the conservative base feels about their president. Granted, they think Bush is better than Hillary, whom they believe should be skywriting ‘Surrender Dorothy' over the Emerald City. But a politician eager to capture the nomination for ‘08 would do well to ask: After six years of one-party rule, what does the base have besides some peeling bumper stickers and a few judicial appointments?" -- James Lileks
"Spanish newspapers are reporting that Fidel Castro is in very grave condition, very ill health. In fact, his priest told him yesterday that he will soon be in a better place. And Castro said, ‘I'm going to Miami?' ... It was Castro's wish to be buried at sea, but, unfortunately, all the rafts are currently in use in Cuba." -- Jay Leno
"This is a decent and honorable country -- and resilient, too. We've been through a lot together. We've met challenges and faced dangers, and we know that more lie ahead. Yet we can go forward with confidence -- because the State of our Union is strong, our cause in the world is right, and tonight that cause goes on." -- U.S. President George W. Bush on the state of the Union
"Our political elite and chattering classes deserve a stiff rebuke for ignoring -- and encouraging the public to ignore -- the truth: In a global war for the Free World, there is nowhere to run." -- Frank Gaffney
"It is the time to put my energy to work as part of the new Democratic majority in the Senate, to do all I can to end this war and strengthen our security and our ability to fight the real war on terror... 35 years ago, I got into public life to end a war that was wrong. I believe now as strongly as I did then that it is wrong to ask more young Americans to die for anyone's mistakes." -- John F. Kerry, announcing his decision not to seek the 2008 presidential nomination
"Do you think Hillary Clinton would make a good President?"... "No, I don't."... "Why?"... "Because she's a Democrat. I don't agree with her philosophically and from a policy standpoint."... "Do you think she will be President then?"... "I don't." -- A recent exchange between CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Vice President Dick Cheney who was, as always, to the point