Lingua publica
The
good and the bad...presented with permission from The Patriot E-Journal
web posted February 25, 2008
"[The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People] is studiously nonpartisan and does not engage in partisan politics." -- NAACP President Julian Bond
"Unlike Michelle Obama, I can't keep track of the number of times I've been proud -- really proud -- of my country since I was born and privileged to live in it." -- Michelle Malkin
"For those who might be a little thin on this, America -- the America of which Mrs. Obama is finally really proud -- gives people like Michelle Obama the right to say excruciatingly stupid things. And, America -- the America of which I have always been proud -- gives people like Barack Obama the ability to run for (and probably win) the Democratic nomination for President of the United States." -- Rich Galen
"There's a battle on the horizon for the future of conservatism. On one side are those who revere unchanging principles, especially a healthy suspicion of government. On the other are those who would refine old principles under the guise of adapting them to new situations -- those apt to see government more as a force for good than a necessary evil." -- Andrew McCarthy
"A Republican ticket that is balanced and strongly representative of concerns for national security, traditional values and a free economy can still be the winning formula." -- Star Parker
"The U.S. Senate adopted the theory that... lawsuits should not be permitted and voted to extend the Protect America Act. A clear majority of Members of Congress also would have voted to extend the Protect America Act. But Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, putting the demands of the Trial Lawyers and the MoveOn.org wing of the Democratic Party ahead of America's safety refused to let the bill come to the floor for a vote. Leaving the rest of us unprotected." -- Rich Galen
"On matters of defense, our country should defer to the military, not to judges." -- Ed Feulner
"Most evil done in the world is done in the name of promoting this or that supposed good." -- Walter Williams
"To be black and catapulting toward the presidency on charm, intellect and popularity is unacceptable to the racist paranoid and scary in America the beautiful... They do not want to hear that he is a better American than they are, these right-wing extremist fascists in the land of America who no doubt believe it's God's will Barack Obama not get to the White House." -- Earl MacRae, Ottawa Sun
"I've gone hunting. I know you may not believe it, but it's true. My father taught us to shoot." -- Hillary Clinton, who has also always been a Yankees fan
"There is something empowering about a gavel in the hands of a U.S. Congressman. No matter how big a weenie he may have been in high school and no matter how much fun the other kids used to make of him, he now has the authority to make corporate heads, executive department bigwigs or sports stars squirm and perspire." -- Pat Sajak
"All of that soaring rhetoric is supported by policies that are so old they creak. Obama may be shiny, bright, and new, but his ideas are suffering from senility." -- Mona Charen
"[Hillary's] whole life right now is a reverse Sally Field. She's looking out at an audience of colleagues and saying, ‘You don't like me, you really don't like me!"' -- Peggy Noonan
"The problems facing America -- unsustainable entitlements, broken borders, nuclearizing enemies -- require tough solutions, not gaseous Sesame Street platitudes." -- Mark Steyn
"Hillary Clinton stated there will be no personal scandal caused by her husband if she's elected president. There goes the last of her support. First she lost the black vote, then she lost the youth vote, and now she has lost the comedians." -- Argus Hamilton
"Over the weekend in Ohio, former President Bill Clinton had an angry confrontation with a heckler who claimed at one point Bill Clinton made physical contact. Clinton denied any physical contact, but then again, he always does." -- Conan O'Brien
"Hillary Clinton is on the campaign trail. She's been speaking about Black History Month. She's been saying that America has come so far that a black man could one day grow up and possibly be vice president." -- Jay Leno
web posted February 18, 2008
"There are seven reasons for anyone to support the eventual nominee no matter who it is: The war and six Supreme Court justices over the age of 68." -- Hugh Hewitt
"Kamikaze Republicans -- those who say they'll never vote for John McCain because he isn't conservative enough -- may get what they deserve. The Clintons... It isn't necessary to love everything McCain has done to vote for him should he be the nominee. But it isn't possible to argue that there's no difference between McCain and Clinton (or Barack Obama), as some Republicans insist." -- Kathleen Parker
"A wise aphorism has it that the perfect is the enemy of the good. While conservatives tilt their noses expressively in the air at the idea of John McCain's representing a movement he votes with 85 percent of the time, Democrats offer the electorate two strong believers in the power of big government, two babes in the woods when it comes to foreign policy, two fast friends of every liberal interest from pro-choice to gay rights to let's-kill-the-Bush-tax-cuts." -- William Murchison
"We are a movement that believes in personal responsibility, so it's time to take some. There are consequences to losing. Now is the time to rebuild and re-group, not whine or complain or sulk. Reagan lost many political battles along the way but never lost hope in the enduring nature of basic conservative principles. Neither should we." -- Laura Ingraham
"Conservative principles are timeless, and will outlast any politician." -- Alfred Regnery
"God still governs. The times and providence called forth the right man to lead America for such a time as this." -- Rep. Mike Pence
"The [Obama] campaign is entirely about Obama and his ability to inspire. Rather than focusing on any specific issue or cause -- other than an amorphous desire for change -- the message is becoming dangerously self-referential. The Obama campaign all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is." -- Time magazine's Joe Klein
"You got John McCain as the presumptive nominee of your party right now. Are you going to calm down and get in line as he suggests? Or are you going to move to Bolivia?" -- NBC's Matt Lauer to Ann Coulter
"I do think [John McCain] gets good treatment [from the mainstream media]. And I'll tell you precisely... the second that's going to end: When the campaign starts for real between one Democrat and one Republican. That's when you're going to hear stories about ‘Is he too old?' ‘Is his temper such that he shouldn't be President?' The media like him because he's the one who pokes his thumb in Republican and conservative eyes, mostly conservative eyes. But as soon as it's McCain against Obama or Clinton the media goes over to the other side." -- Bernard Goldberg, formerly of CBS
"The gains [in Iraq] have not produced the desired effect, which is the reconciliation of Iraq. This is a failure. This is a failure! The troops have succeeded. God bless them. We owe them the greatest debt of gratitude, the sacrifice, their patriotism, and for their courage, and to their families as well. This is a disaster, and we cannot perpetuate it." -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
"We know what we need is someone ready on day one to solve our problems and restore our opportunities. Because when the bright lights are off and the cameras are gone, who can you count on to listen to you, to stand up for you, to deliver solutions for you?" -- Hillary Clinton, as if we're all just waiting around for her to solve our problems
"I think it's very hard for Senator Clinton to break out of the politics of the past 15 years. Senator Clinton starts off with 47 percent of the country against her. That's a hard place to start." -- Barack Obama
"What I would challenge you to do is to put a lot of effort into trying to see whether there's a legal way of throwing our so-called leaders into jail because what they're doing is a criminal act. It's an intergenerational crime in the face of all the knowledge and science from over 20 years." -- Dr. David Suzuki, a former board member of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, on global warming "deniers"
"The mayor asked them to leave because they frighten people." -- Brian Schwartz, spokesman for the mayor of Toledo on Marines being evicted from town before a training exercise
"[She is the] most fiscally conservative candidate running [and] the only candidate who tells you how she'll pay for everything." -- Chelsea Clinton stumping for her mom
"Nothing unites conservatives like Democrats in power and working their mischief, or out of power and maliciously but effectively obstructing good government -- excuse the liberal-sounding oxymoron." -- David Limbaugh
"[Barack] Obama is a candidate whose empty bombast could float a fleet of hot air balloons... Obama's speeches never actually capture a struggling thought -- and if they did, they'd have to waterboard it for information. Obama's speechmaking isn't deep. It is profundity for dunces." -- Ben Shapiro
"If Hillary Clinton loses, does she know how to lose? What will that be, if she loses? Will she just say, ‘I concede' and go on vacation at a friend's house on an island, and then go back to the Senate and wait? Is it possible she could be so normal?" -- Peggy Noonan
"Republican Party candidate Ron Paul got only five percent of the votes [Super] Tuesday for his message of less government, lower taxes and following the Constitution. The American people have spoken. Five percent of the voters are for freedom, and 95 percent are for free stuff." -- Argus Hamilton
"We now have a pro-American President of France. And, in spite of what some radicals say, I think we should have a pro-American President of the United States." -- Martin Silbermintz
"John McCain was the big Republican winner. One pundit said McCain's lucky nickel was working. He carries a lucky nickel. It must be lucky -- six months ago, that was his campaign war chest. ... Hillary Clinton also carries around a lucky nickel. Not for superstitious reasons -- she just flips it when she needs a position on Iraq." -- Jay Leno
"Ed Rollins, [Mike] Huckabee's campaign manager, recently dismissed the Reagan coalition as ‘gone,' saying ‘it doesn't mean a whole lot to people anymore.' That's quite the claim, but perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise. Huckabee has every incentive to distance himself from the GOP coalition: his nomination rests on its demise. Allowing Mike Huckabee to become the face of conservatism would trade unity and principle for an ill-advised romance with a flighty, flaky new brand of politics." -- Former House Majority Leader, Dick Armey
web posted February 11, 2008
"[I]f you look back exactly one year -- to February of 2007 -- the Conventional Wisdom was that Super Tuesday 2008 would mark the end of the Democratic campaign and the coronation of Hillary Clinton, while the Republican race would continue on for weeks, if not months as the GOP struggled to decide on a candidate. Conventional wisdom was, as usual, wrong." -- Rich Galen
"The conventional wisdom is Mr. Romney can't win it while Mike Huckabee's in it. If Mr. Huckabee dropped out, Mr. Romney might pick up his conservatives. But Mr. Huckabee seems very happy running, and perhaps happy thinking of his future as the Mitt slayer in the party of John." -- Peggy Noonan
"It's true that McCain is unpopular with Reagan conservatives because he decidedly is not, on far too many issues, a Reagan conservative. But it's more than that. He is the anti-conservative. He instinctively sides against conservatives and relishes poking them in the eye." -- David Limbaugh
"[The Clintons] will use whatever they want, in order to get whatever they want -- and the effect on the country does not bother them. That was the hallmark of the first Clinton administration. There is no reason to doubt that this will be the hallmark of the next Clinton administration, if there is one." -- Thomas Sowell
"[Bill] Clinton left office insisting that he'd restored liberalism in America, but in reality he bequeathed a confused mishmash of ill-formed ideas, slogans and hatreds. President Bush is winding down his presidency much the same way, talking about limited government, personal liberty and spending restraint, but he's left his party's troops scattered across the battlefield, with no overarching strategy and an awful lot of friendly fire." -- Jonah Goldberg
"Today, the political platforms of at least one party in the United States and pretty much every party in the rest of the Western world are nearly exclusively about... government health care, government day care, government this, government that. And if you have government health care, you not only annex a huge chunk of the economy, you also destroy a huge chunk of individual liberty." -- Mark Steyn
"And I still haven't heard, if people can afford it and they don't buy the insurance, will their wages be garnished under your plan? Will they have to pay fines?" -- ABC's George Stephanopoulos to Hillary Clinton
"The choice for Democrats just got a whole lot harder. [Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton] are of such high quality that the party and the country can't lose." -- Newsweek's Eleanor Clift
"As a new year begins, overall violence [in Iraq] is falling and hope seems to be rising." -- CBS's Harry Smith, finally noticing
"The downturn in violence [in Iraq] is being reflected in an upturn in the country's economy. Since the U.S. troop surge took hold, everything from Iraq's street markets to its stock market has been enjoying better days." -- ABC's David Muir
"I think you can automatically enroll people, and you will then say you've got to be part of this... But if you don't start with universal healthcare, if you don't say everybody's going to be in the system, we'll never get there...[G]oing after people's wages, automatic enrollment... whatever the mechanism is, is not as important as... the fundamental commitment to universal healthcare." -- Hillary Clinton
"[T]he American people want a problem solver. They want somebody who, when the cameras are turned off and the speeches are over, is going to get up every day, bring the country together, run the government, manage the economy, and really help them get the tools they need to fulfill their own potential." -- Hillary Clinton
"There's absolutely no reason why a woman shouldn't be in that office, but I am not sure about this woman. It's insulting to assume that because you're a woman or a person of color, you would automatically back any woman or person of color. It's a little more complicated." -- actress Susan Sarandon
"Americans finally have narrowed the presidential race to two front-runners: John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Too bad they're both busy chatting up Guinevere and Galahad, respectively, in the ultimate Camelot, where the climate really is perfect all the year. Eternally." -- Kathleen Parker
"I'd rather deal with President Hillary than with President McCain... At least under President Hillary, Republicans in Congress would know that they're supposed to fight back." -- Ann Coulter
"John McCain may become the de facto leader of the Republican Party if he's the nominee and the leader of the country if he's the President, but no matter how many times he calls himself a ‘conservative leader,' the Right will accept him as the leader of the conservative movement about 5 minutes after hell freezes over and reopens as a ski lodge." -- John Hawkins
"Barack Obama hinted Friday that illegal immigrant opponents are racists, saying no one's concerned about immigrants from Ireland. That's not true. Hillary Clinton is very concerned about immigrants from Ireland ever since the Kennedys endorsed Obama." -- Argus Hamilton
"I'm now going to sleep in hopes that, when I wake up, it will all be a bad dream and Calvin Coolidge will be ahead in the primaries." -- Mark Steyn
"Rhetoric isn't enough. To get the enthusiastic support of conservatives -- support he must have, to win -- Senator McCain must make his case with deeds, not just words. From Eisenhower to Nixon to both Bushes, conservatives have heard conservative rhetoric from Republican presidential candidates. Each time, they were disappointed by the people and the party they had trusted. [McCain] is an honorable man, but, given the record of the Republican Party and given his own record, conservative rhetoric is not enough to convince people. McCain must surround himself with conservatives in policy positions, so that conservatives know what sort of people will make key decisions in a McCain Administration. He must have a number of Sister Souljah moments with the Washington establishment liberals who consider him their favorite Republican. He has only a few weeks to bring conservatives up to a comfort level with him. If he is to do it, in the words of Macbeth, ‘twere well it were done quickly'." -- Richard Viguerie
"This year, the Republican bosses are going to deny Mitt Romney the nomination. They are going to cynically play politics, they are going to go with the liberal they think can win, and they are going to value victory over principle. They are going to forget the fact that Republicans who abandon principle for success invariably end up with neither." -- Bob Lonsberry
web posted February 4, 2008
"Washington, D.C. is a place where delusions go to thrive. That explains why Congress and the president are now agreed on remedies that will not work, expending money they do not have, to fix a problem that may not exist." -- Steve Chapman
"The fact that the market is not doing what we wish it would do is no reason to automatically assume that the government would do better." -- Thomas Sowell
"When the economy does not need a rescue plan and gets one, it's called ‘campaign spending'. And this $150 billion stimulus package is nothing more than campaign spending on the part of both parties." -- Rush Limbaugh
"Some Democratic and Republican presidential hopefuls are preaching economic doom and gloom, disappearing middle class, and failing health care industry. What's their solution? The short answer is give them more control over our lives." -- Walter Williams
"It is strange that the qualities we are looking for in a sitting president -- thoughtful, calm, and serious -- are exactly the qualities that we penalize in those running for president." -- Rich Galen
"Every candidate who repeats the misleading nonsense that ‘47 million in America have no health care,' ought to be challenged with hard truth. The number is grossly inflated by including millions who are here illegally and millions of others who have the means to pay for health care insurance but refuse to adjust their budget and lifestyle. And don't expect any media type to question where in the Constitution Congress derives any authority to dispense health care." -- Janet LaRue
"He's come from a white family and a black family, and he's married to a black woman, and they're cool people. They are really cool. They are Jack and Jackie Kennedy when you see them together. They are cool. And they're great-looking, and they're cool and they're young, and they're -- everything seems to be great... [I]f you're in [a room] with Obama, you feel the spirit. Moving." -- MSNBC's Chris Matthews
"Are journalists rooting for the Obama story?" -- CNN's Howard Kurtz
"So that there will be no misunderstanding, it's time for all the presidential candidates to take a stand on pulling out of Iraq." -- Helen Thomas
"I think it's time for [Bill Clinton] to just be quiet. I think it's time for him to stop. As one of the most outspoken people in America, there's a time to shut up, and I think that time has come." -- Al Sharpton
"John McCain is Bob Dole minus the charm, conservatism and youth." -- Ann Coulter
"There's losing. There's losing honorably. And then there's John Edwards." -- Charles Krauthammer
"Everyone seems to be campaigning as the candidate of change, but what does that mean exactly? Wouldn't a depression be a change? How about basing our economy on Communism instead of Capitalism?" -- John Hawkins
"Arnold Schwarzenegger warned of a huge budget deficit Friday. He may order ten percent spending cuts. He doesn't want to go to Washington to ask for help because he's afraid if he goes to Capitol Hill he'll be dragged into a steroid hearing." -- Argus Hamilton
"Sometimes we become so accustomed to the way things are, we fail to notice how peculiar they happen to be. And for once, I'm not just referring to Clinton, Obama and Edwards." -- Burt Prelutsky
"It's down to Obama vs. Clinton, and it's getting nasty. They hate each other, with the kind of passionate hatred that you see only between two people who hold essentially the same positions on everything. Edwards is still running, but at this point they don't even bother to put a microphone on him for the debates. He just waves his arms to indicate how he's going to take on the big corporations." -- Dave Barry
"Have you heard this story? They're trying to pass a bill now that allows politicians to insist that they be addressed by gender-neutral titles. Is that really necessary? I mean, don't we already have gender-neutral titles for politicians? 'Crook,' 'liar,' 'adulterer,' 'pinhead,' 'moron' -- these are all gender-neutral." -- Jay Leno
"Romney's very public migration rightward over the last few years is a different kind of act, one intended not to hide his real views but to liberate them. In 1994, Romney struck me as an extraordinarily bright, talented, and decent man -- and a political neophyte who fell for the canard that the only way a conservative could win in Massachusetts was by passing for liberal. [Now,] Romney is where he should have been all along." -- Jeff Jacoby
"We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse-gas emissions ‘cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren." -- Bill Clinton
web posted January 28, 2008
"Mr. McCain is in the middle of a shift. Previous strategy: I'm John McCain and you know me, we've traveled through history together. New strategy: I'm the old vet who fought on the front lines of the Reagan-era front, and I am about to take on the mantle of the essentials of conservatism -- lower spending, smaller government, strong in the world. He is going to strike the great Reagan gong, not in a way that is new but in a way that is new for him. In this he is repositioning himself back to where he started 30 years ago: as a Southwestern American conservative veteran of the armed forces. That is, inherently if not showily, anti-establishment. That is, I am the best of the past." -- Peggy Noonan
"There is a place in American politics for moralizers who think in such Manichaean simplicities. That place is in the Democratic Party, where people who talk like McCain are considered not mavericks but mainstream." -- George Will on John McCain's penchant for demonizing issues and vilifying opponents
"It's OK, I'm for tax rebates -- put some money in people's pockets, though it has to be structured in the right way." -- Hillary Clinton, who thinks that the government is akin to the tooth fairy