Lingua publica

The good and the bad...

web posted May 27, 2002

"The president believes that the trade embargo is a vital part of America's foreign policy and human rights policy toward Cuba, because trade with Cuba does not benefit the people of Cuba -- it's used to prop up a repressive regime." -- Ari Fleischer

"If conservatives are people who put freedom ahead of security and individual rights ahead of government control then it must follow that they are opposed to big government." -- Lyn Nofziger

"The most astounding fact about our time is its great addiction to the state. Even after all the horrors of the past century, people still believe implicitly in the state; whereas, if they learned from experience, they would all talk about states in general the way Jews talk about Hitler." -- Joseph Sobran

"The goal of the United States policy toward Cuba ... is freedom for Cuba's people. ... Without meaningful reform, trade with Cuba would do nothing more than line the pockets of Fidel Castro and his cronies." U.S. President George W. Bush

"It is normal for a country, even the most generous country, to be committed to self-preservation. The 1960s introduced a slow but unstoppable decomposition of that basic human instinct. National self-preservation requires border controls. National self-preservation requires competent and reliable people in important jobs, especially in jobs to do with our security. We can hire people either for 'social justice,' or for competence, not both. National self-preservation requires that the government provides for the safety of Americans before it worries about a sense of comfort for everyone who comes here, whether legally or illegally, whether with legitimate intentions or employing flagrant deception. Our concern with everybody's 'comfort' has acquired proportions bordering on insanity." -- Balint Vazsonyi

"In democracy, as quaintly understood, voters pick their representatives. American democracy increasingly reverses that. Legislative districts are drawn to protect incumbents who, effectively, pick their voters." -- George Will

"Good intentions are good only insofar as they lead to good actions. But if they substitute for good actions, they become harmful." -- David C. Stolinsky

"How could September 11th maybe have been avoided? Real simple. If Bill Clinton, while president, had accepted the Sudanese government's offer to turn over Osama bin Laden. They handed him to Clinton on a silver platter." -- Rush Limbaugh

"Look, what did the President know and when did he know it has a familiar ring to it." -- Bryant Gumbel to Dick Gephardt, who said, "I think what we have to do now is to find out what the president ... knew about the events leading up to 9/11 [and] when [he] knew it...."

"...I think, for the most part, the White House has not lied here." --- ABC's George Stephanopoulos, "for the most part."

"The media beast was so happy to have a scandal here, that we jumped up and down and waved our arms and got all excited about it." -- Newsweek's Evan Thomas

"I actually trained people to do this [capture or kill Osama bin Laden]. We trained people. But in order to do it we would have had to take them in on attack helicopters 900 miles from the nearest boat, maybe illegally violating the airspace of people if they wouldn't give us approval." -- Bill Clinton justifying his ineffectual response to bin Laden's terrorist activities

"...[W]e have ceded Washington the right to control our lives in the name of safety, health-care costs and protecting children. There is no logical end to what Washington can do in the name of those goals." -- Walter E. Williams

"Terrorists can endanger some of us, but the war on terror endangers us all. How much more can the Constitution be diminished before it is completely replaced by arbitrary government power?" -- Paul Craig Roberts

"This is not a film about Republicans and Democrats. Rather, it's an insightful story that looks at the fringe elements of our society and their effect on the modern political process. It's also a story of how these fringe elements influenced our national news media regarding the events and circumstances of Bill Clinton's administration." -- Producer Harry Thomason on his planned "documentary" defense of Bill and Hillary Clinton

"There's no question about the repugnancy of many of his songs. They're nauseating in terms of how we as a culture like to view human progress. But it's a remarkable recording." -- Michael Greene, president of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, on Eminem's four Grammy nominations

"I'm not sure we should even expect 18-year-olds to remember dates and facts and names and places if there's no practical use for that knowledge." -- UCLA History Professor Gary B. Nash, with some adroit insights on why it's not important if the nation's students "don't know much about history."

"I'm happily among those boycotting France. Good-bye to my favorite perfume, which is French.... Hello to my new favorite -- 'Happy' by Clinique. Clinique and Estee Lauder, owned by the American, Jewish Lauder family, like Starbucks, are being boycotted by Arab Muslims for one reason -- they are owned by Jews. This has nothing to do with Israel. The Lauders aren't Israelis. It's anti-Semitism, plain and simple." -- Debbie Schlussel

"People wonder why our high school students don't know history. Perhaps they have been watching C-SPAN." -- Hugh Hewitt

"President Bush is in trouble. You been following this? It's now come out that President Bush knew as far back as January that "Ally McBeal" would be cancelled." -- Jay Leno

"Afghanistan formed an Olympic Committee Sunday to lobby for admission to the 2004 Games. They hope to field wrestling, boxing and shooting teams. Unfortunately for their track and field chances, their best runners are all in Pakistan by now." -- Argus Hamilton

web posted May 20, 2002

"Radical environmentalism, romantic multiculturalism, and authoritarian utopianism all reflect a rather smug idealization of the disadvantaged and nature in the raw. Central to this creed is identification with the supposedly anti-Western world of the universal downtrodden -- and, really, almost anyone or anything else in the past three centuries that has come up against the juggernaut of the dominant culture of Western industrial capitalism." -- Victor Davis Hanson

"The United Nations gun-grabbers don't care about our Constitution and they don't care about national sovereignty. The UN always wants to expand its power, and global gun control goes hand-in-hand with global government. Every American who cares about the 2nd Amendment should oppose this latest UN attempt to dictate our domestic laws. There is no question that the UN ultimately seeks to impose worldwide gun control, although it has no legal or moral authority to do so." -- Rep. Ron Paul

"The First Amendment...begins with the five loveliest words in the English language: 'Congress shall make no law'." -- George Will

"...[T]he purposes of government are derived from unchanging human nature, namely the protection of individual natural rights." -- Thomas L. Krannawitter

"The editorials and op-ed page of the Times are monothematically left-liberal. Among its columnists, there is not one centrist or conservative. ... The Washington Post, by way of contrast, is editorially much less strident, and has regular columnists such as George F. Will, Michael Kelly, and Charles Krauthammer. This makes the opinion pages of the Post considerably more interesting. It is a liberal paper that knows it must engage opposing arguments. The Times, on the other hand, is a smug and self-contained world, run by people who seem truly to believe that not only do they publish all the news fit to print but also all the views fit to print, and that what they publish defines what is fit." -- Richard John Neuhaus

"This is a land of freedom. Intolerant oppressors hate freedom and reject liberty of conscience because it deprives them of power over others." -- Cal Thomas

"The Constitution and the Bill of Rights limit the government, not the people. But liberalism limits the people, favors government, grows and expands it." -- Rush Limbaugh

"The Palestinian leadership that is there now, the Authority, is not the kind of leadership that can lead to the Palestinian state that we need." -- Condoleezza Rice

"If winning is the only value, why debate when you can suppress?" -- John Leo

"Government is generally a zero-sum game: Politicians can't pay Paul except by robbing Peter." -- Steve Chapman

"Yes, conservatives are more likely to see black and white in the sense of believing in moral absolutes. But that doesn't mean they fail to appreciate the complexity of the world and its subtle nuances." -- David Limbaugh

"Cultural conservatives can be forgiven their overenthusiasm for Celine Dion. Dignified, classy, and talented, she embodies public virtues long absent from mainstream pop. Married, maternal, and monogamous, she embodies private virtues too. And her lyrics are as free of expletives as her flesh is of tattoos and piercings. What more could Republicans want in a diva? ... In a word, art...." -- World Magazine

"Public school officials nationwide are banning children from playing 'cops and robbers,' citing zero-tolerance policies for anything resembling violence at school.... Other games recently banned from school playgrounds include duck, duck, goose; musical chairs; steal the bacon; and tag because they encourage exclusion, theft, bullying, aggression and competition." -- Washington Times

"The other thing we were looking at is the health care system and how every Cuban has a family doctor. You cannot go without health care here because there's a system set up, a safety net, where, if you live in a neighborhood, you're covered by somebody." -- CNN's Kate Snow trumpeting the benefits of Castro's Cuba

"You know, but Mr. President you know, you know how I feel about you, you know how I feel about you and the Palestinian people...." -- Fox's Geraldo Rivera gushing over Yasser Arafat

"There's a lot of people who know we won the popular vote last election. A lot of us think we won in Florida last time; I'm one of them. I'm one of them." -- Bill Clinton

"Insisting on the supremacy of the neocortex exacts a high price, because the unnatural task of a disembodied mind is to somehow ignore the intense psychic pain that comes from the constant nagging awareness of what is missing: the experience of living in one's body as a fully integrated physical and mental being." -- Albert Gore

"We had to realize that the [9-11 terrorists] were brilliant. It showed that the ego we could hold up until September 10 was inadequate. Americans can't admit that you need courage to do such a thing. ... But what if those perpetrators were right and we were not? We have long ago lost the capability to take a calm look at the enormity of our enemy's position." -- Norman Mailer opining abroad about "brilliant" terrorists who arguably might be right in "the enormity of ... [their] position"

"Getting us to understand that is like asking black people to understand why the Klan puts on pointy white hats." -- The Daily Show's Jon Stewart responding to the suggestion by actress Susan Sarandon that Jews should be more sensitive and understanding in regards to Palestinian homicide bombers

"In the media world, precise distinctions are for sissies." -- Wesley Pruden

"At one level, Bill Clinton is so September 10th. On the other hand, so are many of the most influential figures in the American media, and in recent days they've been doing their best to persuade the world that Bill is still the coming man." -- Mark Steyn

"Bose Labs says it has recorded the lowest decibel sound ever made. The softest sounds ever heard -- that would be Yasser Arafat denouncing terrorism." -- Jay Leno

"President Bush signed the Farm Bill into law on Monday. It doles out $190 billion over ten years. The farmers don't want a hand-out, they only want enough money from the government to maintain their sense of frontier independence and rugged individualism." -- Argus Hamilton

web posted May 13, 2002

"If he can just wait a couple months, I suspect we're going to spill enough of his blood to write the Encyclopaedia Britannica." -- Orrin Judd on news that Saddam Hussein recieved a Quran written in his own blood. Ezzat Ibrahim, vice president of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council, told papers: "You can imagine the quantity of blood required for the holy book, which comprises 6,666 verses and 336,000 words!"

"To centralize power in the name of freedom is akin to putting a crime syndicate in charge of rooting out corruption. It is the normal state of politics that the more centralized it is, the more damage it does. Fast-track authority [for government-to-government trade agreements] centralizes power and is therefore part of the problem." -- Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

"...[S]ince when did government programs need to 'work'? The list of programs that fail, whose unintended consequences exacerbate problems, simply boggles the mind.... So here's the drill. Congress passes laws, never mind the impact. Congress sometimes studies the impact of laws, frequently ignoring its findings. And, written in government-speak, reports often serve to confuse, confound and, every now and then, entertain. For example, one government study injected deadly gas into a cage of laboratory rats, killing all. The report's conclusion? The experiment induced a '100 percent mortality response.' Gotta love it." -- Larry Elder

"And what would a much maligned and dreaded Israeli political victory over the current terrorist war look like? First and foremost, it would see Arafat's physical disappearance from the scene and the dismantling of his Palestinian Authority as a political and military organization. ...[A] new Palestinian government, committed to coexistence with Israel and the provision of political and economic freedom to the Palestinian people ... [could] develop democratic institutions and economic prosperity." -- Caroline B. Glick

"Clinton did everything he was accused of: committed perjury, subornation of perjury, obstruction of justice, abuse of power.... But what he mainly did was use a 21-year-old intern for sex in the Oval Office. And that, by itself, is disqualifying. If America were a better country, it would know that." -- Jay Nordlinger

"The U.N. is a hateful and anti-Semitic mobocracy." -- Frank Gaffney

"Only by uniting the effort of the people and the state can we confront these threats. That was well proven by the anti-Hitler coalition. The coalition countries defeated the enemy. And today, we are again uniting and finding allies against a common threat. Its name is terrorism." -- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin

"...[The] U.N. was complicit in the kidnapping of Israelis by one of the worst terrorist organizations on earth." -- Ariel Cohen

"We oppose the skin trade, and of course we oppose Third World parents selling their children into slavery. So where is the outrage when the Saudis and Saddam reward Palestinian families whose children commit homicidal suicide? Is it more acceptable to sell one's daughter into suicide than into slavery?" -- R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.

"...[F]ree speech is rotting from the inside out." -- Jonah Goldberg

"Property rights and freedom of contract are especially important to unpopular minorities, who otherwise might have no escape from the tyranny of the majority." -- Jacob Sullum

"And soon, thanks to American pressure, Yasser Arafat should be free to resume his bloody career. The deal is simple: He'll pretend not to be a terrorist and we'll pretend to believe him." -- Paul Greenberg

"Arafat has been like Lucy with the football, treating the rest of the world as Charlie Brown." -- Jim Woolsey

"Weakness is provocative, and defeat can be a wonderful teacher." -- Mona Charen

"No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the sources of our troubles, we shouldn't test for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power." -- P.J. O'Rourke

"Deliver us from people so in love with their own moral passion that they think they are entitled to break the law." -- John Leo

"We didn't win the war in Afghanistan.... I don't care that George Bush doesn't know much, but the people around him should know more who don't seem to know more. ... We've got a Secretary of Defense who thinks he's Woody Allen." -- New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh

"One item today about the Jenin refugee camp to which Mr. Arafat referred: The international human rights organization, Human Rights Watch, said today the evidence suggests that the Israeli Army committed war crimes in the military operation there, but the group, which has been studying in the camp for several days, found no evidence to support claims that the army massacred hundreds of Palestinians." -- ABC's Peter Jennings

"The extent to which Republicans pander to Latinos never ceases to amaze me. First, the GOP announced they would teach their members to speak Spanish so they could better communicate their disastrous record with the Hispanic community -- in two languages." -- DNC head Terry McAuliffe

"The last elected President of the United States." -- New York Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel introducing Bill Clinton

"You spoke about 'The Erections,' Pat [Conroy]. Jean [Auel] wrote about a Homo erectus, I believe. I just want you to know he's not stiff." -- Tipper Gore gesturing toward her man Al at a weekend trade show BookExpo America. To which, former VP Al Gore replied, "I think our time is up. ...They're not hearing anything you're saying. They're wondering what you meant."

"I am a hope-to-die, carry-me-out-in-a-box Democrat." -- Alec Baldwin

"These days, air travel makes me look longingly at Greyhound buses. It makes me look longingly at being dragged behind a motorcycle." -- Fred Reed

"The sudden popularity of the Palestinian suicide bomber really is very puzzling. Apparently it is socially approved behavior in many neighborhoods. That ought to appeal to the more extreme wings of the world population control movement." -- R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.

"You know, those Arabs out there, they're not gonna believe anything you do. They don't believe the other tapes we got of Osama bin Laden. They all say it's fake. Isn't that annoying? You get these tapes, here's Osama and they go, 'No, you faked it. The United States faked it.' It's like trying to convince the Democrats they really lost the election." -- Drew Carey

"Liquid Papering-out this week the ICC treaty's American signature, affixed by the Clinton administration ... ranks up there with sensible decisions in behalf of the national interest." -- Bill Murchison

"The Afghan chief of military intelligence said today that Osama bin Laden is still alive and well. That's good news -- we can still kill him!" -- Jay Leno

"Newsweek says it's learned that Osama bin Laden is alive and well and living in Pakistan. Sources say he's trimmed his beard and appears to be healthier than ever. There's nothing like running every day to keep you looking and feeling great." -- Argus Hamilton

web posted May 6, 2002

"If we want to run our politics like a tea party that's fine. But it is deeply, deeply disturbing -- and dangerous -- when we confuse this desire with what the First Amendment is supposed to be about. Banning child porn -- in any form -- is precisely the sort of 'speech' the Founders and successive generations of Americans believed the state could and should ban. At least conservatives, on the whole, still believe that. ...But the dominant political culture -- in the courts, the universities, Congress, and the media -- which too many conservatives bow to, doesn't want to ban anything on the fringes of our society for fear of being called -- heaven forbid! -- a censor or a prude. In other words, the freedom of the fringe is rock solid in this country precisely because free speech is rotting from the inside out." -- Jonah Goldberg

"If a terrorist is breaking into the cockpit door and you shoot him with a firearm, that's pretty conclusive. The gun in the cockpit is going to be used only when there are determined terrorist hijackers trying to get into the cockpit. You have two alternatives. Option A: The terrorists break through the door and crash the plane into the ground, killing everybody. Or Option B: Anything short of Option A has to be better." -- Air Line Pilots Association spokesman John Mazor

"What America holds in common with the tiny state of Israel is rooted in what the terrorists resent and hate: the rule of law, justice, tolerance and respect for freedom. Those willing to become human missiles and bombs scorn those values, having been persuaded that tolerance and respect for the beliefs of others is decadent and weak. That's why the Islamists were so disbelieving when September 11 did not shatter and fragment us." -- Suzanne Fields

"Presidents, regardless of party, face constant pressures from the Left -- from the Big Brother government, neofascist, high tax, property-confiscating liberals, from the econazis and global warmists, from the pro-abortionists, from those who are pro-one world and anti-American and from those who advocate cradle-to-grave socialism. (Have I left anyone out?) And, unless there are constant counter-pressures from those on the Right who believe in small government, low taxes, America first and individual liberty, presidents, under Left-wing pressure, tend to drift that way." -- Lyn Nofziger

"I'm just a humble sinner who sought redemption." -- President George W. Bush

"War is not just Hell but a Hell of a teacher." -- Paul Greenberg

"Freedom and prosperity cannot coexist with socialism and endless war. Yet socialism and endless war are exactly what most in Washington are promoting." -- Rep. Ron Paul

"Among the most urgent political priorities of our age is the separation of economy and state." -- Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

"Marx was wrong when he said that history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. The second time is tragedy too." -- Charles Krauthammer

"Treating Palestinian homicide bombings and Israeli responses as morally equivalent obscures the difference between deliberately targeting civilians and going after terrorists." -- Marvin Olasky

"Let us make war on the phrase 'violence doesn't solve anything.' It is a lie, and anyone who utters it cannot be taken morally seriously." -- Dennis Prager

"There is simply no way that a mother can reach the pinnacle of the professional world, whether in politics or business, without feeling she's short-changing her kids." -- Linda Chavez

"There was a very significant funeral in Palestinian Gaza this week for three boys who were killed by the Israelis. The fact that they were so young -- the boys -- has been particularly disturbing to Israelis and Palestinians both." -- ABC's Peter Jennings on the Israeli Defence Force killing of three young would-be suicide bombers

"Some people think I faked it for eight years before 100 million people." -- Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, taking a "riff" off describing the time his Teleprompter went down during one State of the Union speech and he "had to fake it for several minutes before 100 million people"

"We will ... never bring up the permanent tax cut the president is advocating. It's bad policy, it's wrong and it compounds the budget disaster we are now facing." -- Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle

"He exploited black sentiment because he knew the rituals of black culture. But we had been neglected by so many previous administrations that [we accepted] the first man who came by and winked at us and played saxophone on Arsenio Hall. Well, shame on so many African Americans for holding Bill Clinton up as some sort of hero." -- Michael Eric Dyson, professor of religious studies at DePaul University, at an NAACP fund-raiser

"I think it would have been far more reflective of his administration if Clinton simply had raised the money to buy the Mustang Ranch and rename it the Clinton Library and Massage Parlor." -- Rush Limbaugh

"I did have an NRA director come up and actually ask what he could do to help the Pink Pistols. ... So there certainly is an outreach effort." -- Tom Boyer of the homosexual gun-rights group "Pink Pistols" on his group's participation at the NRA's annual convention

"The French people have taken to the streets in angry protests against ... the French people! Which must be a relief to the operators of McDonald's franchises, British lorry drivers and other more traditional targets of their ire, but is still a little weird." -- Mark Steyn

"Over in the Middle East the standoff continues at the Church of the Nativity. So we have Jews holding up Muslims in a Christian Church -- it's nice to see the world's religions coming together." -- Jay Leno

"President Bush celebrates Cinco de Mayo with a White House party on Friday. It marks Mexico's victory over France. For crying out loud, Betty Ford would have to franchise if we celebrated every single country that ever defeated France." -- Argus Hamilton

web posted April 29, 2002

"Experts and the educated elite have...replaced what worked with what sounded good. Society was far more civilized before they took over our schools, prisons, welfare programs, police departments and courts. It's high time we ran these people out of our lives and went back to common sense." -- Walter Williams

"When Congress first convened in 1789, members received $6 a day for their trouble. Just a scant 15 years ago, the salary of a United States Congressman was $77,400 while today that salary has risen to $141,300. So where once public service was an avocation, today it is a career and a lucrative one at that. Name another job that features the ability to self-appoint raises at will." -- C.T. Rossi

"Lately, the Palestinians have compared their struggle with the U.S. in 1776. But in what way are the two comparable? Only insofar as they both were/are asymmetrical wars. But in moral terms, they are radically different. The goals of the infant country in 1776 were never to eliminate Britain or to slaughter the wives and children of British soldiers. The Founding Fathers structured the political regime to be self-governing, answerable to its citizens, and predicated on the idea of finding a way to go from bullets to ballots in political succession. No such self-restraint, or check and balance against corruption, is in evidence by the current Palestinian leadership or its terrorists." -- Mark T. Clark

"Fifty million Frenchmen can be wrong, and never more so than when they're teamed with EU mouthpiece Chris Patten, UN human rights poseur Mary Robinson, the European Parliament (which has demanded sanctions against Israel), the German government (which has announced an arms embargo against Israel), the brand new International Criminal Court (which -- in its very first 24 hours! -- started mulling the question of 'Israeli war crimes'), the Norwegian Parliament (which had a visitor thrown out of the building for wearing a provocative Star of David on his lapel), never mind the members of Calgary's 'Palestinian community' who marched through the streets carrying placards emblazoned 'Death To The Jews,' a timeless slogan but not hitherto a burning issue on the prairies." -- Mark Steyn

"Sometimes organized conflict -- in a manner quite unlike other natural tragedy -- shatters pretense, overturns old ideologies, and in a blink of an eye makes what was once unthinkable very soon rather pedestrian." -- Victor Davis Hanson

"Amid the rubble and confusion of war, the stench of the dead and wails of the living, war offers a terrible clarity. Delusions crumble, propaganda can be seen for what it is, and diplomatic gestures are only that -- a cover for what war will decide." -- Paul Greenberg

"...[T]he root cause of terrorism is totalitarianism." -- Benjamin Netanyahu

"A terrorist is not equipped to negotiate. Only defeat will persuade him. Moral clarity keeps the goal in focus." -- Suzanne Fields

"You can spare me the rebuttal that I am being reflexively pro-Israel -- as if being reflexively inclined to favor democracies and allies over crowds who burn American flags, who blow up innocent children, and who have enthusiastically supported the Nazis, the Soviets, and Saddam Hussein in their respective struggles against the United States is something to be ashamed of." -- Jonah Goldberg

"We have two choices: Either we change the way we live, or we must change the way they live. We choose the latter." -- U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

"And protests about human dignity are hard to swallow from a people whose leadership devalues life to the point of sending its youth to their sacrificial deaths." -- David Limbaugh

"What chance of survival does a culture have when its own elites actively seek its destruction?" -- William S. Lind

"We never ask of any Big Brother program, 'How much is it going to cost? When's it going to be said to have been successful? How are we going to define whether or not it's successful, and when are we going to end it?'" -- Rush Limbaugh

"[Bernard] Goldberg was, let's face it, not a bright shining star in the firmament of CBS News. He usually looked disheveled and bleary-eyed on the air. Goldberg was not only a flop as a network correspondent, he's a lousy writer besides." -- Washington Post's media critic Tom Shales, responding to Goldberg's book, "Bias." Goldberg was kept on staff at CBS News for 27 years and presented six Emmy awards for his "flop"

"...[The personal computer] ecosystem depends in substantial part upon the continued health of and improvements to Windows." -- Microsoft head Bill Gates testifying modestly about company software

"In the animal rights movement, we don't decorate our dogs; it lowers their self-esteem." -- Linda Blair, of "The Exorcist" movies

"From Mary McGrory in The Washington Post to Mark Shields on CNN, a falafel curtain has descended across our continent, transmogrifying the Arab aggressor into the victim." -- William Safire

"Most public-opinion polls are like Ouija boards. They're great fun as long as you don't pay them much mind." -- Wesley Pruden

"Terrorism isn't an 'ism' like communism or fascism. It is a tactic. Declaring war on a tactic makes sense only if you are willing to follow such convictions wherever they take you. But if terrorism becomes just another irrelevant 'label' whenever your convictions become inconvenient, you're going to get yourself into trouble with the people who took you seriously." -- Jonah Goldberg

"Until federal regulators are forced to use sound science in the pursuit of species preservation, myopic mandates like the ESA [Endangered Species Act] will continue to make suckers of us all." -- Charles Rousseaux

"Fidel Castro will go to work as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley before Yasser Arafat signs a peace treaty." -- David Brooks

"This rigid, hostile, puritanical control of little boys is now national policy. Very, very bad, cops and robbers. It could be worse, though. Little boys might play Cowboys and Injuns. (They certainly couldn't call it that. Perhaps 'Genderless Animal Care Technicians and Preternaturally Noble At-One-With-Nature Role Models' would do.)" -- Fred Reed

"There's a new Osama bin Laden tape out. I haven't seen it yet. Let me guess -- he's standing next to a big rock threatening us. Am I close?" -- Jay Leno

"Al Gore wrote an editorial in the New York Times ... complaining that global warming has caused women in Boston to wear bikinis in April. This is just one more difference between Al Gore and Bill Clinton. Al Gore thinks it's a problem." -- Argus Hamilton

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