Lingua publica

The good and the bad...

web posted May 21, 2001

"Our Founding Fathers were proud that Americans were trusted with arms because they knew that only when people are armed could they truly be thought of as free citizens. And that's where the circle closes. Those who want to deprive you of your right to keep and bear arms are intending to deprive you of your freedom, period. Like the criminals their policies encourage, these elitists know that it is always best to disarm victims before you enslave them." -- Charley Reese

"A NARAL website screams hysterically that President Bush, in his first 100 days, 'has taken more aggressive actions aimed at limiting freedom of choice than any president since Roe v. Wade.' Among the 'anti-choice actions' listed by NARAL is this one: 'President Bush has ended the [American Bar Association's] longstanding role as impartial reviewer of potential judicial nominees.' Wait a second. If the ABA is really an 'impartial reviewer,' then how can dumping it be an 'anti-choice action'?" -- National Review Online

"I will not sit idly by while residents' privacy is invaded by an intrusive, ineffective, and unfunded mandate." -- Michigan Secretary of State Candice Miller is suing the central government over its recent requirement that citizens provide their Social Security numbers when they get or renew their drivers' licenses

"Anyways, here really isn't that much of a philosophical difference between the two." -- Jim Jeffords of Vermont on why he voted against Bush's budget

"The former 'land of the free' takes a far higher percentage of the individual's income than the former communist state of Russia." -- Paul Craig Roberts

"...[C]ivility. It's part of living in a civil society, which is as much about limiting our passions as sharing our values." -- Paul Greenberg

Everyone craves singularity." -- William F. Buckley, Jr.

"...[T]he only force greater than science, theology or public opinion: political correctness." -- Thomas Sowell

"The good news about the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill is that it is at its heart such an insane measure that it will never be the law of the land. The courts will gut McCain-Feingold from stem to stern, and hurrah for that." -- Michael Kelly

"To restore the idea of the original republican system, which allows maximum freedom for individuals and communities to govern themselves, should also be the sum total of our agenda." -- Lew Rockwell

"What turns out to be a lifetime job -- very steady work -- is conservatism's task of keeping government where it belongs, which is on a short constitutional leash, and politics in its place, which is at the margins of life." -- George Will

"As legitimate scholars have shown time and again, there is no correlation between gun ownership and crime except often an inverse one -- the fewer private guns, the more crime." -- Charley Reese

"Lowering the bar for what constitutes a good citizen does not create more good citizens." -- Jonah Goldberg

"There's one rule of civilized behavior for humanity, another for the press." -- Brent Bozell

"Our federal and state governments and taxpayer-financed schools should speak to us only in the language of the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence." -- Phyllis Schlafly

"[L]imited government is the foundation and paradigm of all our freedom. Because limited government is where the Founders placed this nation. And where, as a people, we belong." -- Alan Keyes

"Yes, I think he's an honest man. ... I think at the core, he's an honest person. ... I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things." -- CBS' Dan Rather on Bill Clinton

"Former President Clinton's disgraceful exit raises an awful possibility: Maybe he was as morally bankrupt as his right-wing enemies said." -- Salon's Joan Walsh

"I would have kissed Tipper much longer at the convention. But she was struggling." -- Al Gore

"Maybe someday I'll run for something again." -- Bill Clinton

"Sadly, since assuming the interior secretary post, you have compiled an abysmal record of capitulating to big businesses at the expense of the nation's public health, public lands and wildlife." -- Letter from Robert Redford to Gale Norton

"It was hardly an indecent proposal for Mr. Redford to spend an afternoon with ordinary people releasing an endangered bird. Unfortunately, Mr. 'Three Days of the Condor' chickened out." -- Norton spokesman Mark Pfeifle in response

"I don't think he's any worse than past presidents, morally. I just think he could have been more discreet--like in a hotel and not in the Oval Office." -- UFT member Linda Paley, on Bill Clinton's receipt of the United Federation of Teachers' annual John Dewey Award

"There were some drawings that were confiscated by the teacher. The children were in no danger at all. It involved no real weapons." -- principal David Schmitt after an 11-year-old fifth-grader at St. Petersburg, FL's, Oldsmar Elementary School was arrested, handcuffed and hauled away from his school after he was caught drawing a picture of a gun

"I asked him the most important question ... if he had ever seen Caddyshack." -- Jesse Ventura, Minnesota governor, on meeting the Dalai Lama

"Should we let everyone enjoy themselves a little longer, or would you like to begin your speech now?" -- Question recently put to Sen. Orrin Hatch by an event organizer for the Federal Judges Association

"You almost have to admire the sheer audacity of granting pardons to two tax-scamming billionaire fugitives named Rich and Green. If the symbolism were any more obvious, Andrew Lloyd Weber would be writing music for it. Let's face it: the Clintons are the Costco of Sleaze." -- Dennis Miller

"Clinton is in Poland, when someone threw a raw egg at him. Clinton is an expert at getting out stains, so the egg will be no problem!" -- Jay Leno

"Bill Clinton may get knighted by the Royal Family in Great Britain. Just wait until they do the background check and find that impeachment!" -- David Letterman

web posted May 14, 2001

"Executing a murderer is the only way to adequately express our horror at the taking of an innocent life. Nothing else suffices. To equate the lives of killers with those of victims is the worst kind of moral equivalency. If capital punishment is state murder, then imprisonment is state kidnapping and restitution is state theft." -- Don Feder

"The false view of history is a very powerful tool in its emotional appeal to centralized government, to unthinking nationalist fervor, and to the eternal mission for correcting the world that motivates leftists. It is the same type of mentality that thinks bombing women and children in the Balkans is OK because it is done in the name of theories of 'human rights' and 'democracy'." -- Clyde Wilson

"The sad thing is that the country that has been the beacon for those fleeing tyranny for 200 years is not on this commission, and [Sudan, China, Libya, Algeria, Syria, Vietnam and Cuba] are on this commission. It's very bad for those people who are suffering under tyranny around the world." -- National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice of the United States' ejection from the U.N. Human Rights Commission

"...[T]he challenge for Mr. Bush will be not merely to advocate a technically viable and affordable anti-missile system worthy of broad support at home and abroad. Increasingly, he must also make the case for U.S. leadership at a time when it is being vilified as 'unilateralist.' He must unapologetically extol American exceptionalism at a moment when the Nation is under growing pressure to conform to the lowest-common-denominator served up by the so-called 'international community'." -- Center for Security Policy's Frank Gaffney

"My Democrat friends need to be reminded and return to those days of yesteryear when they supported cutting tax rates and did not engage in this endless class warfare that they have today become a Johnny-one-note on." -- Zell Miller, who is rumoured to be considering leaving the Democrats for the Republicans

"What secret knowledge, one must wonder, is breathed into lawyers when they become Justices of this Court...? Day by day, case by case, it is busy designing a Constitution for a country I do not recognize." -- Justice Antonin Scalia

"It [Red China] is clearly a dictatorship, it's a Communist dictatorship, by their own testimony." -- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

"Our words, and the words of our laws, reveal our understanding of reality. Our willingness to insist on using the right names for things -- and for children -- is a sign of our resolve to insist on respect for the truth." -- Alan Keyes

"Return with me again to the Kultursmog; one of the besetting failures of modern America is the shapelessness of its ethics, the paucity of its intellectual standards." -- R. Emmett Tyrrell

"We have even lost the ability to discuss moral questions seriously -- as evidenced by the mantra that there's no connection between private conduct and the capacity for leadership." -- Don Feder

"In Edu-Land, nothing sinks curriculum as quickly as success." -- Debra Saunders

"All things considered, our Founders would be dismayed by the income tax mess and the tragic loss of liberty which results." -- Rep. Ron Paul

"A review of how of how five national broadcast and cable news networks have covered the 'global warming' issue shows a bias sharply tilting in favor of the restrictive Kyoto Protocols on the environment. From January 20 through April 22, of the 51 news stories relating to the theory of global warming, there were only seven references to skeptics. ABC, CBS and NBC nightly news coverage totally excluded the views of global warming skeptics from their coverage." -- Media Research Center

"Take a state. Well, take Texas, for example." -- Hillary Rodham-Clinton, feigning to pull President Bush's home state of Texas at random as one state that passed large tax cuts and is now faced with smaller than projected surpluses

"George Bush is going out of his way to court the Catholic Vote. Obviously he's hoping there'll be a mass defection from the Democrats." -- Lyn Nofziger

"The Clintons merrily paraded their greed and corruption past us like a garish Mardi Gras float powered by the drivetrain of Bill Clinton's gargantuan sense of entitlement." -- Dennis Miller

"There is now a lobbying group in Washington called the Pink Pistols. It is a pro-gay, pro-gun organization. Isn't that unbelievable? Pro-gay, pro-gun organization. I'm not making this up. Their slogan is: 'That is a gun in our pocket, and we are happy to see you.'" -- Jay Leno

"Do not mistake bribe-taking for corruption." -- Russian interior minister (their FBI director equivalent) Vladimir Rushaylo

web posted May 7, 2001

"The importance of morality is that people behave themselves even if nobody's watching. There are not enough cops and laws to replace personal morality as a means to produce a civilized society. Indeed, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. Unfortunately, too many of us see police, laws and the criminal justice system as society's first line of defense." -- Walter Williams

"In nearly 100 days, we have made a good start. But it's only a start. Now we need to turn a good start and good spirit into good laws." -- George W. Bush

"We need a new framework that allows us to build missile defenses to counter the different threats of today's world. To do so, we must move beyond the constraints of the 30-year-old ABM Treaty. This treaty does not recognize the present or point us to the future. It enshrines the past." -- George W. Bush in support of his missile defence system

"I believe he's making the right decision to sit back and relax and allow the Bush administration to accumulate a record and come out this fall to speak out on the issues." -- Donna Brazile, former campaign manager for Al Gore and his silence during the first 100 days of the Bush presidency

"This frivolous lawsuit, which was approved by a sitting president and vice president of the United States, comes to its wimpy conclusion with Mr. Blumenthal, I repeat, Mr. Blumenthal cutting a check." -- Matt Drudge on former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal's dropping a $30 million lawsuit

"China grows more brutal by the day. So much for the ameliorating influence of American trade." -- Paul Greenberg

"If we had to single out one American institution that stands at the forefront of modern-day racial discrimination, deception and contempt for fundamental principles of liberty, it would be America's universities." -- Walter Williams

"Liberals can't afford to have history accurately recorded and interpreted, because it would constitute a total repudiation of everything they have stood for. Instead of admitting that, they choose the easier route of distorting facts...." -- Rush Limbaugh

"I wonder how the media would have treated Kerrey had he been, say, a Republican and member of the NRA?" -- Merrill Matthews

"True science always verifies reality; it's only junk science that manufactures illusions based on ideologies." -- Phyllis Schlafly

"Bush is not Bill Clinton. ... Instead of 'defining deviancy down,' Bush is defining decency up." -- Cal Thomas

"A society that can transform the image of a smoker from chic fashion to social felony can make illegitimacy unacceptable." -- Suzanne Fields

"Why is the media so kind to the Clintons? Because, at root, they all crawled out from under the same rock: They are 1960s leftists who are anti-American values, pro-drugs, pro-permissiveness, anti-military, anti-marriage, anti-tradition and part of a New Left that saw Moscow, Havana and Peking as romantic hotspots on the road to an egalitarian Utopia." -- John LeBoutillier

"I never had a sexual relationship or anything else that's improper." -- Denise Rich on what she did to gain a pardon for Marc Rich

"Here's another thing that George Bush has accomplished in his first 100 days that Bill Clinton couldn't get done in eight years: The retirement of FBI Director Louis Freeh." -- Rich Galen

"In Clinton's first 100 days, he already had 'Nannygate' and 'Travelgate' and there would follow more gates than San Quentin." -- Steve Dunleavy

"I may be the only mother in America who knows exactly what their child is up to all the time." -- Barbara Bush

"Yes. There are some suck-ups." -- Young Ashley Bush, on what has changed at her school since her uncle, George W., became president

"There was an article in USA Today about George Bush's body language. They said when he's annoyed, he narrows his eyes; and when he's tired, his face sags a little bit; when he's happy, he kind of lifts his shoulders. They didn't say what he does when he's in deep thought because apparently that hasn't happened yet." -- Jay Leno

"Today was "Take Your Daughter to Work Day." This must have been a very tricky day for Jesse Jackson. He had no idea who was going to show up." -- David Letterman

web posted April 30, 2001

"When the federal government is held to its proper constitutionally limited functions, tax reform will take care of itself." -- Rep. Ron Paul

"Bush was not only ratifying Bill Clinton's edicts in last week's run-up to Earth Day. Free market activists who consider themselves allies were told to sit down and shut up about the greening of the new president." -- Robert Novak, on George W. Bush's approval of Clinton-era environmental regulations

"From the students of today will come the teachers, lawyers, journalists and other influential citizens of the future. That is scary." -- Nat Hentoff

"American parents have surrendered their responsibility for the education of their children to government -- and increasingly to the Imperial Federal Government. The results aren't good." -- Neil Boortz

"When whites questioned the conventional wisdom on [race] issues, it was considered bad form; when blacks did so, it was treason.'' -- Justice Clarence Thomas

"The incident in the China sea has made it clear to those who did not want to admit it that China isn't a strategic partner after all." -- Phyllis Schlafly

"The numbers don't add up, and I know there's boogers and hanks in them details." -- Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D) in a press release on Mr. Bush's tax plan

"I've waited almost 20 years for the Democratic Party to shape up, and it keeps getting worse." -- Ralph Nader

"...[T]he best reform of all would be to get rid of the current federal income tax, and replace it with ... nothing." -- Vin Suprynowicz

"They elected the symbol of Ebonics to the presidency of this nation. There ain't no brother in Oakland, or anywhere else, that would run the phrase or mix up the words the way this cat does. It raises serious questions about whether he's really white." -- San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown on President Bush

"United States Senators take the business of being a Senator very, very seriously. If they thought they could get away with it, they would wear togas." -- Rich Galen

"Did you see the rioting in Quebec at the big Summit of the Americas? Quebec is a French word meaning Cincinnati. As usual, they showed the protesters burning the American flag. I'll tell you something, that American flag was made in Mexico and is being burned in Canada, so free trade works!" -- Jay Leno

"Bill Clinton has a home about 20 minutes north of here in a town called Chappaqua. Bill has nothing to do, so he goes to this bar to hang out. He enjoys going to bars more now, the more he drinks the more women look like Paula Jones!" -- David Letterman

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