Lingua publica
The good and the bad...
web posted June 25, 2001
" 'Hypocrisy' is a charge liberals resort to first when attacking social conservatives on moral issues. They rightly point out that conservatives often fail to live up to their own standards. They fail to grasp the importance of upholding high standards by which even one's own conduct can be seriously faulted." -- Michael Novak
"As we said before, and will say again, it is better to report many legitimate transactions that seem suspicious than let one illegal one slip through." -- a U.S. Postal Service training video for postal clerks advising them to report "suspicious" cash transactions to a federal task force on money laundering. The "Under the Eagle's Eye" program further explains that if a transaction "seems suspicious to you, then it is suspicious"
"Sometimes those who oppose capital punishment talk about 'the sanctity of human life.' ... But the issue of capital punishment comes up only because the murderer has already violated the sanctity of human life. Are we to say that his life has more sanctity than the life or lives he has taken?" -- Thomas Sowell
"In the past quarter century, activists have gone from predicting an Ice Age because of 'greenhouse gases' to climate-changing global 'warming' caused by the exact same gasses. Go figure." -- Washington Times
"Conservatives will always be at an inherent disadvantage in American political life until the timeless principles they believe in -- merit, accountability, competition, the pursuit of excellence, etc. -- win moral authority by proving their effectiveness against those great enemies of the nation's promise: racism and poverty. It is a culture war that pits principle against social engineering, one in which each side hopes to prove itself against the challenge of inequality. ... But moral authority is the fruit of moral risk. The left challenged an entrenched culture of racism to win its moral authority. The least conservatives can do is to go after racial preferences like they mean it -- in the spirit of intolerance for unfairness and distaste for the condescension to minorities that preferences represent. An irony of power is that by risking it, one can gain it." -- Shelby Steele
"They call me a right-winger, which is an insult -- I'm simply a racist and a separatist." --Tom Metzger, leader of the White Aryan Nations, disputes one characterization of him
"If he had only let me know he was going to be a centrist Democrat in his third U.S. Senate term, I would never have become the Democratic nominee against him in 1998. Sure, for a Democrat, McCain leaves something to be desired, but for a Republican, I say well done and welcome to the progressive cause." -- Ed Ranger, a Democrat who ran against John McCain in 1998
"Advocates of socialist central planning in Washington may claim to have the solutions to energy shortages, but in truth market forces cannot be ignored any more than the laws of physics. Americans who want to continue to enjoy uninterrupted energy supplies should oppose any federal regulation of energy markets." -- Ron Paul
"In America today, there is no business that the government considers none of its business." -- Linda Bowles
"American law schools should terminate their constitutional law courses, as the subject no longer exists. Judicial law has replaced constitutional law." -- Paul Craig Roberts
"It is a mistake to think Mrs. Clinton has achieved her ambitions, just as it is a mistake to think Mr. Clinton has." -- Peggy Noonan
"If we continue our current path, future generations will curse us for squandering unprecedented liberty." -- Walter E. Williams
"I consider myself a recovering feminist. I saw a lessening of femininity, a loss of motherhood." -- Dr. Laura Schlessinger
"Home-schooling may be the biggest educational trend of them all: a quasi-return to the style of colonial times, before anyone saw education as the rightful function of government." -- Bill Murchison
"The New York Times ran eight sentences on the arrest of 17-year-old Albert Gore III on page 18; The Washington Post, eight sentences on Page 6; the Los Angeles Times, nine sentences on Page 10; and USA Today, a three-sentence item in a roundup column." -- Washington Post media commentator Howard Kurtz, on the amount of coverage the media gave the arrest of Albert Gore's son last summer for driving 100mph versus the space allocated to the Bush daughters' consumption of beer
"The New York Times doesn't want to cover the culture war; it wants to fight it." -- Stanley Kurtz
"I calculated that for every dollar I made on a book, I'd have to spend $2 on therapy for just reliving it, so I'm not writing a book." -- Joe Lockhart, former Clinton spokesman, scuttling talk of writing a tell-all book
"Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease." -- George W. Bush at a news conference during his European tour
"If Bush turns the other cheek anymore, his head will fall off." -- Deroy Murdock
"It was the noisiest thing I ever heard. I turned my hearing aids all the way down and kept my hands over my ears much of the time." -- Sen. Jesse Helms at a news conference on his attendance of a U2 tour concert
"If they pull this off [HarperCollins removing the Christian content from the C.S. Lewis series 'The Chronicles of Narnia'], we can only guess what's next: Dante's Inferno without hell? Paradise Misplaced? How about Pilgrim Goes Nowhere in Particular?" -- Charles Colson
"Congress is about to pass an education bill. The president is expected to sign it. The bill is interesting -- it calls for not letting marginal students slip through the cracks and go on to become, you know, president." -- Jay Leno
"George W. Bush is back from Europe. He says when he was meeting with Russian president Vladmir Putin that he could see his soul through his eyes. Isn't this an old Clinton pick-up line?" -- David Letterman
web posted June 11, 2001
"With its subpar ruling on golfer Casey Martin, the Supreme Court demonstrated that many of its members are playing with an excruciatingly high handicap on the course of common sense. ... Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens announced, 'The essence of the game has been shot-making.' That comes as a surprise to most scratch golfers, who mistakenly believed that the essence of the game was swearing and hitting things ... sometimes even the ball .. with sticks." -- Washington Times
"If we're ignorant of the historical sacrifices that made our liberties possible, we will be less likely to make the sacrifices again so that those liberties are preserved for future generations. And, if we're ignorant, we won't even know when government infringes on our liberties. Moreover, we'll happily cast our votes for those who'd destroy our liberties. ...Our historical amnesia doesn't bode well for our future. As such, it makes a mockery of all the political demagoguery that we hear to justify one government program or another: We want to do it for America's children." -- Walter E. Williams
"[If the Democrat-controlled Congress had cut spending as promised after Ronald Reagan cut taxes] we wouldn't have had the deficits." -- Democratic Senator John Breaux
"[I]t's something that is done.... You can go to the top of Mt. Rushmore regularly. People do that almost every week. In fact, I'm sure they're doing it today." -- Senate Plurality Leader Tom Daschle, attempting to explain a $5,000-per-person fund-raiser for about 100 of his "close friends" on top of George Washington's head at Mt. Rushmore
"In the age of moral relativism, popularity is enough to legitimize any behavior...." -- Brent Bozell
"The reality is: That change in the Senate doesn't mean much given that both parties are hamstrung by soft middle-road types." -- Paul M. Rodriguez
"For Bush, the message [from the Jeffords defection] is that liberal regions won't be wooed by compromises." -- Fred Barnes
"Thanks to the negligence of their opponents, [Leftists] control the terms of every debate by always demanding 'more' while never defining 'enough.' The predictable result is that they always get more, and it's never enough." -- Joseph Sobran
"Of course, you can fool all of the people only some of the time." -- Stanley Kurtz
"The fact is, the best way to raise self-esteem is through genuine accomplishment." -- Charles Colson
"The Constitution's free speech clause doesn't include only those who have nothing controversial to say." -- Steve Chapman
"I am an enemy of the public-school system because of the liberal forces that have taken it over and are determined to do social engineering there, foisting upon people notions of behavior and philosophy...that have nothing to do with reading, writing and arithmetic." -- Dr. Laura Schlessinger
"Feminists may fairly be delighted about being 'liberated,' but what feminism also liberated men from was their obligations." -- Jonah Goldberg
"The work of compassionate courts never ends." -- George Will
"Now, the issue of how to live in the world of the possible without betraying one's ideals is a complex one, and many intelligent people have offered many different solutions." -- Gene Callahan
"[Tom Daschle] is an unpretentious Midwesterner described by colleagues as mild-mannered, straightforward, even nice. Beneath the friendly exterior is a shrewd, tenacious politician ... skilled at holding his party together ... Daschle is adept at striking just the right political note." -- NBC's Lisa Myers with a puff piece on Daschle
"I think bias is very largely in the eye of the beholder. Good journalists work very hard to leave their bias beside the typewriter, or the computer as it may be." --ABC's Peter Jennings
"I hope I can find something to do to make use of this incredible experience I've had to benefit the public." -- Bill Clinton
"Lefties just don't seem to get this fundamental truth of politics: Not only has there never been a revolution without violence, but there's never been meaningful social change without violence or at least the threat thereof." -- Ted Rall advocating violence in "Smashing Windows for a Better World," an article for Mother Jones
"[The Everglades are] ... the only place on earth where crocodiles and alligators live side by side. We're kind of hoping that's the way it gets to be in the United States Congress one of these days." -- George W. Bush
"He is getting back some of his own." -- Barbara Bush on her son's problems with his daughter Jenna
"The new administration in Jerusalem finally has the public backing for getting tough, very tough, if Peace Offensive No. 712 -- do not laugh, please -- does not succeed." -- Wes Pruden
"When it comes to Casey Martin it's clear that the Supreme Court has put the cart before the course. .. Since [the ADA] covers both physical and mental problems it legitimizes the service of several members of the Supreme Court." -- Lyn Nofziger
"Democrats glory in hardball and fisticuffs. Republicans favor ping-pong and tiddlywinks." -- Bill Murchison
"The Bush family got together this weekend in Texas. They all went to see "Pearl Harbor" together. What a change -- for once the Bushes were watching someone else get bombed!" -- Jay Leno
"Today was the big changes in the Senate. All because of this Jim Jeffords guy, he went from a Republican to an Independent. So now Trent Lott goes from Majority Leader to Minority Leader and Tom Daschle goes from Minority Leader to Majority Leader. The change was actually easy, they just had to switch hair pieces." -- David Letterman
web posted June 4, 2001
"The advocates of 'it takes a village to raise a child' are having a rough month. They are scurrying around trying to come up with arguments to refute the new study showing that children who spend most of their time in day care are three times as likely to exhibit behavior problems...as those who are cared for primarily by their mothers. ... The study found a direct correlation between time spent in day care and a child's aggression, defiance and disobedience. The findings held true regardless of the type or quality of day care, the sex of the child, the family's socioeconomic status or the quality of the mother care." -- Phyllis Schlafly
"In the past, the expectation that people should do what is 'right' served as a powerful impetus for people to do right things. It also discouraged them from doing wrong things, while reinforcing moral and ethical norms. Societal disapproval of certain behavior thought to be bad for individuals and culture and its promotion of other behavior deemed to be good for both was thought to be central to the promotion of the general welfare." -- Cal Thomas
"Maybe if more people challenged the status quo and demanded more from politicians and newsmen there would be better understanding of how things work (or don't). Children manage to do this daily, yet many adults give way without question. This is worrisome to many of us who believe asking tough questions is the best way to live and remain free." -- Paul M. Rodriguez
"The congressional GOP isn't spineless, as some allege. It's headless. It has no ideological core. It does not stand for limited government, reduced taxes or liberation from the indignities of Big Government. It stands merely for survival -- which is defined as enjoying the good opinion of a president and a press corps that will tolerate a Republican Party only insofar as it behaves like a faint reproduction of the Democrat Party. ... The modern Republican Party is a work in progress that stopped progressing four years ago. ... For now, Lincoln's party isn't a party at all - just a party in waiting. When Republicans meet next year in convention, the only thing they'll be sure to have in common is hotel reservations." -- Tony Snow
"...[A] crucial issue in the culture war is the courts' usurpation of the democratic process. Instead of letting the American people, through their representatives, settle these contentious issues, the courts increasingly impose their own answers." -- Charles Colson
"Will America go down in history as the country which defeated collectivism in the 20th century and then became collectivist itself in the 21st century?" -- Doug Bandow
"We should do business with the Senate as we always have: accept its good bills, improve its flawed ones, kill its bad ones. We should keep moving the Republican reform agenda through the House without apology." -- Dick Armey
"Liberalism now functions for substantial numbers of its adherents as a religion: an encompassing worldview that answers the big questions about life, lends significance to our daily exertions, and provides a rationale for meaningful collective action." -- Stanley Kurtz
"America is becoming a managed society, and individual freedom is the victim." -- Henry Lamb
"The true crisis facing us is not a physical shortage of energy, but rather the looming threat that socialist economic planning will replace market mechanisms and cause unnecessary shortages." -- Ron Paul
"We have seen the Democrat solution to an energy crisis; it's called California." -- Rep. J.C. Watts
"Equality in law, the product of a thousand-year struggle, is the greatest achievement of our civilization. ...Equality in law is no longer the guiding principle of civil rights." -- Paul Craig Roberts
"Traditionalists and libertarians need to recognize that we are a minority. America in 2001 is not the America of 1945, much less the America of 1850. The only way you would ever take Medicare and Social Security away would be at gunpoint." -- Charley Reese
"[Bush's tax reform] could begin to reshape our culture, so that optimism and ambition, not envy and bitterness, become our dominant political values." -- Tony Snow
"The most successful terrorist organizations on earth are government tax agencies...." -- Joseph Sobran
"...[I]n a republic, the self-control and discipline of the warrior must be extensions of the self-control and discipline of the citizen." -- Alan Keyes
"Government is us, and each generation has to stake its claim. ... Your challenge is not this vast conspiracy you have heard about, but a silent conspiracy of cynicism, indifference and alienation that we see every day." -- Hillary Clinton to Yale graduates
"You have a great future, even if the future isn't what it used to be." -- Hall-of-Fame catcher Yogi Berra speaking to graduates of Roger Williams University
"I'm still looking for that book in the library 'Great Moderates in American History.' There are none." -- Rush Limbaugh
"I just learned how to forward Monica Lewinsky jokes to someone else." -- President George W. Bush on his computer prowess
"It's more than a decade since I was in the front line of politics. ... On my way here I passed a cinema with the sign the mummy returns." -- Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher campaigning for Tory underdog William Hague
"They're so much alike that I'm hard-pressed to know which is the entertainment capital of the world: Hollywood or Washington, D.C." -- Motion Picture Association of America president Jack Valenti
"Seems to be some controversy in a high school outside of Peoria, Illinois. The seniors at Washington High want to pray at their graduation ceremony, and that's not allowed. Let me tell you, if you're a high school senior today that hasn't been shot at, beat up by a bully, hit by a dodge ball, or hasn't gotten pregnant, your prayers have already been answered!" -- Jay Leno
web posted May 28, 2001
"As the minutes went by and the hours, it became abundantly clear that this has nothing to do with an economic policy. This is nothing but a big tax cut." -- Hillary Rodham Clinton
"Americans understand the concepts of checks and balances and separation of powers. They are aware of the importance of these ideas to the furtherance of freedom. They know that the American ideal of natural unalienable rights is supported by a profound belief in the significance of individual sovereignty. Within our Constitution there is a point where these principles converge. The people are the ultimate check and balance to any branch, agency or person acquiring a disproportionate amount of power. It is our venerable Second Amendment that fuses the notion of constraint on government to the autonomy of the solitary citizen." -- James Hirsen
"Public anger has focused on the IRS, and the agency has committed more than its share of mistakes and abuses. But the real culprit is Congress. It has given those who work at the IRS the impossible task of fairly implementing an unfair tax code and unfair tax rates. Does Congress want to cut cheating? It should be frugal with taxpayers' earnings. Give everyone the tax cut that they deserve. And simplify the tax code." -- Doug Bandow
"By the logic of some commentators hostile to President Bush's determination to deploy defenses against ballistic missiles, the government should stop trying to develop an AIDS vaccine. Attempts to produce a vaccine have encountered failures and have not yet produced a product that works 'perfectly' or 'fully.' The day Bush announced -- reiterated, really -- his commitment to missile defense, ABC News said: 'He wants to spend a vast amount of money, and it doesn't matter if the system doesn't work perfectly'." -- George Will
"What does it mean when Republicans and Democrats alike warn us about the 'pain' involved in cutting government spending -- in their spending less of our money? For the average citizen, what pain is there in his keeping more of his money to invest it the way he wants? Taxes cost people. Tax cuts do not cost government." -- Theodore Forstmann, founding chairman of Empower America
"What kind of investor keeps pouring money into a product that grows shabbier by the year? ... Vouchers are really the only way to get rid of poorly producing schools, but George Bush needs a better Congress than this one to [get them]." -- Suzanne Fields
"Anytime you throw an object at somebody it creates an environment of retaliation and resentment. There is nothing positive that can happen except a bully gets to beat up on little kids." -- Thomas Murphy, a Boston, Massachusetts, PE instructor in the fight against dodgeball
"Vermont's Jim Jeffords is the RuPaul of American politics. For over two decades, Jeffords has been a reliable liberal dressed up as a Republican." -- Mark Levin
"Ted Kennedy was finding it difficult to reach agreement with the White House because Jeffords kept pulling him to the left." -- National Review Online
"We do look forward to seeing Democrats in the Senate transition themselves from nay-sayers and obstructionists to a majority that actually has to lead and legislate." -- Rep. J.C. Watts
"Government, not markets or deregulation, caused the economic woes we face today. Free markets insure that supply and demand are evenly matched, preventing shortages." -- Ron Paul
"Rich, yuppie environmentalists are slowly but surely shutting this country down economically." -- Rep. John Duncan
"Having killed off all diversity of thought, the only diversity that can be found in the politically correct left-wing propaganda mills that masquerade as universities is diversity of skin color." -- Paul Craig Roberts
"Tyrants have many faces; freedom has only one: inward morality that is predicated upon personal faith. If we really cared about preserving liberty, this would be our unflinching message." -- Chuck Baldwin
"If someone is so fearful that, that they're going to start using their weapons to protect their rights, makes me very nervous that these people have these weapons at all!" -- Rep. Henry Waxman
"Not too bad." -- 14-year-old Nathaniel Brazill's assessment after a West Palm Beach jury found him guilty of second- instead of first-degree murder for killing his English teacher just before summer break last year
"Six million Jews died in concentration camps, but 6 billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughterhouses." -- PETA
"To the C students, I say, 'You too can be president of the United States'." -- George Bush addressing students at the 300th commencement of Yale University
"The difference between a politician and a pickpocket is that the pickpocket doesn't get indignant when you tell him to keep his hands to himself." -- Joseph Sobran
"One way to help the energy shortage would be to harness the gas that emanates from Congress on an almost daily basis." -- Lyn Nofziger
"Bill, we're on to you, and it's over, understand? We've awakened from our long nightmare of codependence and addiction. We don't need you anymore, Bill, okay? So stop calling and stop driving past our house at night and stop looking at us like that." -- Dennis Miller
"The Reverend Al Sharpton says he plans to run for president in 2004. Finally a Democrat that can restore honesty and dignity to the White House! He'll be running against Gore for the Democrats. So what we have are two chubby guys named Al." -- Jay Leno
"Former Attorney Janet Reno says she might run for Governor of Florida. She is so unpopular there they won't have to use the crooked voting machines!" -- David Letterman
