Lingua publica
The
good and the bad...presented with permission from The Patriot E-Journal
web posted July 28, 2008
"The objective of this trip was to have substantive discussions with people like President Karzai or Prime Minister Maliki... or others who I expect to be dealing with over the next eight to ten years." -- Barack Obama, unsure how long American presidents can serve
"Who would be afraid of [President Bush]? He's got a 29 percent approval rating." -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has a nine percent approval rating
"Let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel's." -- Barack Obama
"This saturation coverage has already led the conservative blogosphere to offer blistering critiques of a liberal media slavishly treating Obama as a pop star. But... the sheer presence of media in no way guarantees favorable coverage." -- CBS's Jeff Greenfield
"Now, before Afghanistan Senator Obama stopped off in Kuwait to talk to the troops there. You remember all that grief Obama got for being a terrible bowler? Well, at a local gym someone handed him a basketball and he promptly sank a shot from way outside the paint. He made it look easy." -- CBS's Forrest Sawyer
"At this point it would take a willing suspension of disbelief to put any trust in the military judgment of... Barack Obama." -- Paul Greenberg
"The idea that four months before a presidential election a candidate can run through these countries, meet some world leaders, and claim experience in these matters may impress the liberal media, but to me, it exposes just how unprepared for the presidency this guy is... I have never seen a presidential candidate with less to offer this nation -- yet with more arrogance and self-delusion -- than Barack Obama." -- Rush Limbaugh
"I think that the coverage [Barack Obama] is getting is beyond presidential. It's papal. I mean, a president never has all three anchors on the way with him... If you needed any evidence of how much in the tank the mainstream media are, this is it." -- Charles Krauthammer
"Obama's self-deprecation was his most charming bit, but lately he is, well, less charming. He and his wife seem more like a finger-wagging principal and teacher tag team, with Michelle Obama promising that her husband will make us work harder when he becomes president. You get the feeling that should the Obamas take over, we'll all be staying after school. They used to call that detention." -- Kathleen Parker
"To say you're going to get out on a certain schedule -- regardless of what the Iraqis do, regardless of what our enemies do, regardless of what is happening on the ground -- is the height of absurdity." -- Michael O'Hanlon, Democrat foreign policy analyst at the liberal Brookings Institute
"The real American dream is not found in having a government that helps you pay for your home, your health care and your retirement. It is found in taking care of those things yourself, as a free and independent person." -- Terence Jeffrey
"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are called government-sponsored enterprises. At times, Congress has seemed a Fannie Mae- and Freddie Mac-sponsored enterprise." -- Rich Lowry
"General Sherman famously said, ‘If nominated I will not run, if elected I will not serve.' I already ran -- I, I, I'm not running for the -- I didn't run for the nomination, and I've already been elected and didn't serve." -- Al Gore
"Barack Obama is [on] a trip to visit Iraq and several other Middle East countries. Obama says he is excited about the trip, mainly because he's looking forward to meeting other people named Barack Obama." -- Conan O'Brien
"For the first few months of the campaign, the question about Obama was: Who is he? The question now is: Who does he think he is? We are getting to know. Redeemer of our uninvolved, uninformed lives. Lord of the seas. And more." -- Charles Krauthammer
"Obama's record is like floor wax: all shine and no depth." -- Cal Thomas
"The press has been endlessly dazzled with the prowess and the promise of the Barack Obama campaign. Observers of these quivering scribes have to wonder if they don't collapse from exhaustion at the end of the day from all the involuntary spine tingling and shortness of breath over Obama's inspirational aura." -- Brent Bozell
"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recommended oil drilling in already-explored Alaska leaseholds Tuesday. She won't yield on offshore or wildlife preserves. The Democrats are not opposed to drilling, they are just opposed to drilling in areas that have oil." -- Argus Hamilton
"Conservation, efficiency and using oil we hold in reserve for emergencies does not get us more energy. It's as if we were running out of food and the Democrats were telling us: ‘Just eat a little less every day.' Great! We'll die a little more slowly. That's not what we call a ‘plan.' We need more energy, not a plan for a slower death." -- Ann Coulter
"The feds say federal institutions are in trouble for giving money to those already in debt. That's the problem. They gave money to those already in debt. So, why are we paying taxes? Who's more in debt than the government? What, are they $9 trillion in debt? We're giving them more money? We're enablers. We need to stop this." -- Jay Leno
"I think that the coverage [Barack Obama] is getting is beyond presidential. It's papal. I mean, a president never has all three anchors on the way with him. If you needed any evidence of how much in the tank the mainstream media are, this is it." -- Charles Krauthammer
"Obama has a problem: What do you do when you're a lightly accomplished one-term senator, a former state legislator from Illinois, a Harvard law graduate who has no substantive record of accomplishments, and you are running against a war hero whom polls show that Americans overwhelmingly view as far more fit to be commander in chief? Pose, of course. What else can a guy like Obama do?" -- Maggie Gallagher
web posted July 21, 2008
"A regrettable by-product of modern media proliferation is its frequent lack of restraint and good humor, especially on the Web. Tony Snow rose above such vituperation as a happy political combatant, which is one reason so many who knew him or watched him in action are now mourning his death from cancer on Saturday at age 53. As a columnist and radio talk show host, Snow was principled but never nasty. As the host of ‘Fox News Sunday,' he exuded good will... And as White House press secretary, he cheerfully but forcefully sparred with reporters in making the President's case on policy. No doubt because he was confident in his own convictions, he wasn't defensive about his answers. This has not been universally true during the Bush Presidency. Above all, he took ideas and politics seriously... Tony Snow... set the right example." -- The Wall Street Journal
"One of the most naive notions is that politicians are trying to solve the country's problems, just because they say so -- or say so loudly or inspiringly. Politicians' top priority is to solve their own problem, which is how to get elected and then re-elected. Barack Obama is a politician through and through, even though pretending that he is not is his special strategy to get elected." -- Thomas Sowell
"I am not aware of anything remotely comparable to Sen. Obama's recent reversals of positions. To my knowledge, it is without moral precedent in modern American presidential elections. It is an act of political cynicism, compounded in its audacity by Sen. Obama's explicit claim to being above politics as usual." -- Tony Blankley
"Whenever Obama moves ‘to the middle,' it is not to stay there, but to collect new voters and bring them back with him to the Left." -- George Neumayr
"John McCain and Barack Obama both gave speeches at the League of United Latin American Citizens convention in Washington, and in the 4,600 words they spoke between them didn't mention assimilation once. Never mind that assimilation is the key to the historic success of American immigration." -- Rich Lowry
"You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession... We may have a recession; we haven't had one yet... We have sort of become a nation of whiners." -- former senator Phil Gramm
"I don't think our legal system should be that complex. I think that any system that requires that many of the country's best minds, and they are the best minds, is too complex." -- Justice Antonin Scalia
"What do you say to those folks out there who are saying, ‘I voted for this guy because he told me he was going to bring the troops home in 16 months now he says he wants to refine his position'?" -- CBS's Russ Mitchell
"And on Iraq when, when throughout the primaries you did talk about this, this idea of getting U.S. troops out within 16 months of being elected and now you say, ‘Look I'll talk to commanders and generals on the ground and my, my ideas are being refined.' People do get nervous about that senator, you understand that?" -- NBC's Matt Lauer
"Senator Obama is not just tacking gently toward the center. He's lurching right when it suits him, he's zigging with the kind of reckless abandon that's guaranteed to cause disillusion, if not whiplash." -- New York Times columnist Bob Herbert
"I'm going to call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff and give them a new mission, and that is to bring the war in Iraq to a close. We are going to get out." -- would-be commander in chief Barack Obama, who doesn't understand that the Joint Chiefs don't have operational command of U.S. forces
"Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English -- they'll learn English -- you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish." -- Barack Obama
"Barack Obama told a town hall meeting in Georgia... that parents need to make sure their kids are able to speak Spanish. So that's his economic policy. He is going to have Americans pose as illegal immigrants so they can get low-paying jobs." -- Argus Hamilton
"Syria is an amazing country. It is not at all what I expected... I've never felt safer." -- Barbara Walters of ABC's "The View" on her trip to Syria
"So where does this misconception come from that Syria's an issue?" -- The View's Whoopi Goldberg to Barbara Walters
"Well, first of all the country is on our terrorist list. They are against the war in Iraq... And they are neighbors and friends of Iran... And they are friendly with both Hamas and Hezbollah who are two groups that we consider unfriendly groups [truth in labeling: terrorists] in Israel... They have also been accused of allowing people and terrorists to cross the border into Iraq. They say they do not do that and they haven't and they've really cut down on it." -- Barbara Walters
"Cheap gas is unfair. Driving creates huge social costs in the form of traffic, health-damaging pollution and global warming that aren't suffered solely by the person buying the gasoline... If the U.S. were to slowly jack up gas taxes until we're in the $8 range, life would be better. We'd not only be safer and have reduced greenhouse-gas emissions, we'd probably be happier too... Sure, $8 gas is unfair to poor people, but so is all of capitalism." -- Los Angeles Times columnist Joel Stein
"Only in America could critics of a group called ‘The Race' ['La Raza'] be labeled racists. Such is the triumph of left-wing identity chauvinists, whose aggressive activists and supine abettors have succeeded in redefining all opposition as ‘hate'." -- Michelle Malkin
"No matter the peaks we have climbed in life we are all midgets next to his majestic holiness, the Barack of Obama." -- Mark Steyn
"Before government hijacked charity in the form of the New Deal and Great Society, compassion and charity began at home. People were to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit prisoners, care for widows and orphans and love their enemies. Those were biblical commands to individuals, not government. Democrat politicians see things differently. Apparently believing there aren't enough caring people, they want compassion to originate in Washington, depriving it of its true meaning. They define compassion as big and ever-growing government and a guaranteed check forever with no expectation -- or requirement -- the recipient will ever better his or her circumstances." -- Cal Thomas
web posted July 14, 2008
"It's one thing to fight a war and lose it. It's quite another to willingly surrender without a struggle." -- Cal Thomas
"The Congress should look to increase exploration inside the United States. It is strange to ask what I should produce. It's an issue of sovereignty." -- Qatar Deputy Premier and Minister of Energy and Industry H.E. Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah in response to Democrats' plans to sue OPEC
"How do we define competency and leadership when a war veteran is set against an anti-war idealist, when one who has seen it all is challenged by one who still wants to see it all, when experience and deliberation are set against hope and change?" -- Victor Davis Hanson
"Obama's seasonally adjusted principles are beginning to pile up: NAFTA, campaign finance reform, warrantless wiretaps, flag pins, gun control. What's left? Iraq. The reversal is coming, and soon." -- Charles Krauthammer
"Obama's constant policy adjustments tend to be admired for their alleged deftness rather than condemned for their obvious cynicism, while his liberal primary positions are presumed to be sincere -- the shifts being carried out just to trick the foolish old people who wouldn't vote for such an obvious liberal." -- Tony Blankley
"When we go to the polls in November, we should beware of any candidate promising that government will solve all our problems. We need to work to keep government doing its right roles and no more, because if we do not, it will eventually cease to function at all." -- Chuck Colson
"While the media may treat the elections as being about Democrats and Republicans... elections were not set up by the Constitution of the United States in order to enable party politicians to get jobs. Nor were elections set up in order to enable voters to vent their emotions or indulge their fantasies. Voting is a right but it is also... a duty not just to show up on election day, but a duty to give serious thought to the alternatives on the table and what those alternatives mean for the future of the nation." -- Thomas Sowell
"Senator Obama will shine a light on [racially tinged appeals] all the time, call out Republicans whenever he senses they're playing the race card." -- ABC's George Stephanopoulos
"[I] understand what you're saying, general, but someone who's had the experience that Senator McCain has had, if you're commander in chief and you're sending soldiers into war, having that kind of experience, isn't it better than having no experience at all in the military?... General Clark, do you feel like you owe Senator McCain an apology?" -- ABC's Robin Roberts to Wesley Clark
"While I would not dispute the longstanding assertions that there are more political liberals in newsrooms than conservatives, our political staff, as best I can tell, represents all kinds of backgrounds and beliefs, and because we all work so closely and in such a fishbowl, we all tend to keep one another on the straight and narrow." -- New York Times Political Editor Richard Stevenson
"Barack knows that we are gonna have to make sacrifices, we are gonna have to change our conversation, we are gonna have to change our traditions, our history -- we're gonna have to move into a different place as a nation to provide the kind of future that we all want desperately for our children. And he is the man to do it." -- Michelle Obama
"When he comes to a fork in the road, Barack Obama continues to take it." -- Wesley Pruden
"What makes Obama's ‘textbook' dash to the center so extraordinary is not just its speed, but how it falsifies the very essence of his candidacy... When it comes to triangulating, he's Hillary Clinton without the baggage." -- Rich Lowry
"Back in the days of ‘The Lone Ranger' program, someone would ask, ‘Who is that masked man?' People need to start asking that question about Barack Obama." -- Thomas Sowell
"The Obamans insist that mentioning any of the man's disreputable friends and religious mentors is a no-no that smacks of McCarthyism. This is an odd complaint because, one, McCarthy was right when he pointed out that the folks who associated with other people at Communist cell meetings were in fact Communists, and, two, every child is told that he's going to be judged by the company he keeps. So, let's face facts -- John Dillinger ran with a nicer crowd than this guy." -- Burt Prelutsky
"Time magazine's columnist Joe Kline... recently called for -- get this -- a reduction or elimination of the use of air conditioning in America. (This is a measure that would be wildly popular in Arizona, Texas, and Florida I'm sure). Air conditioning, you see, consumes 4% of the energy used in this country, and thus by his lights has become a serious threat to national security." -- David Strom
"Big scare [Monday] for Barack Obama. His airplane had to make an unscheduled landing because of mechanical problems. While the pilot was steering to the left the plane was apparently drifting to the right. Nobody could really quite figure out what was happening." -- Jay Leno
"The disconnect between what Democrats are saying about Iraq and what is actually happening there has reached grotesque proportions. Democrats won an exhilarating electoral victory in 2006 pledging withdrawal at a time when conditions in Iraq were dire and we were indeed losing the war. Two years later, when everything is changed, they continue to reflexively repeat their ‘narrative of defeat and retreat' (as Joe Lieberman so memorably called it) as if nothing has changed... Obama and the Democrats would forfeit every one of these successes to a declared policy of fixed and unconditional withdrawal. If McCain cannot take to the American people the case for the folly of that policy, he will not be president. Nor should he be." -- Charles Krauthammer
"[W]hen I hear people say let's bring the troops home and end the war...it's not going to end the war. I think it's going to give you a war of significantly increased proportions. I remember how we reacted to Rwanda. How could we have let that happen? Why didn't we step in? Why didn't we get the international community engaged? Well, you know, what if you have a humanitarian catastrophe in Iraq and it's not a question of why didn't we step in, it's we stepped out. How is that going to affect people?" -- Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq
web posted June 30, 2008
"We've made the decision not to participate in the public-financing system for the general election. This means we'll be forgoing more than $80 million in public funds during the final months of this election. It's not an easy decision, especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections. The public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents who have become masters at gaming this broken system. John McCain's campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs. We've already seen that he's not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations." -- Barack Obama
"In late November, Obama responded to, and then signed, a questionnaire stating, ‘I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly-financed general election.' John McCain... does have a political issue. Barack Obama has flip-flopped on public campaign financing." -- CNN's Candy Crowley
"We know what kind of campaign they're going to run. They're going to try to make you afraid. They're going to try to make you afraid of me. He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black? He's got a feisty wife." -- Barack Hussein Obama, who, speaking of race, happens to be half white
"[Y]ou've got some weak men on the conservative side who, frankly, don't like strong women. I mean, we saw the exact same thing take place for Hillary Clinton back in 1992... All of a sudden... Michelle Obama is this angry black woman, when in fact, she's an accomplished woman, a mother, a wife. And so, they are trying to define her in that way, because they don't want to deal with the reality." -- CNN's Roland Martin
"The conventional view that women embrace commitment more eagerly than men is playing out in the unconventional new world of same-sex matrimony, judging from the growing stack of marriage licenses in Sacramento County...60 percent of the same-sex newlyweds this week are lesbians and 40 percent are gay men. Among heterosexual couples -- to no one's surprise -- the gender breakdown is 50-50." -- The Sacramento Bee
"When the terrorists attack again -- as Homeland Security has repeatedly warned us they will -- how many survivors will be consoled because the Supreme Court and the State Department looked out for the ‘rights' of terrorists before the rights of their dead loved ones?" -- Cal Thomas
"Obama would bring us back to September 10th America. And September 10th is sure to be followed by September 11th." -- Andrew McCarthy
"[T]he Democrat Party right now, in this election cycle, wants you hurting. They want gasoline prices to continue to rise. They want the price of food to continue to rise. They want you mad as hell at the Republicans for it. They want you to accept government sponsored changes to so-called fix all this, as articulated by [Barack] Obama." -- Rush Limbaugh
"The day after Al Gore endorsed Barack Obama in Detroit, MSNBC kept repeating the allegedly big news with the on-air question ‘Will Gore Help or Hurt Obama?' Left out of that question: Who cares? Does Gore's endorsement matter at all?... He doesn't bring a single vote Obama doesn't already have." -- Brent Bozell
"The most fundamental fact about oil worldwide is that there is lots of it. Though frequently overlooked, the ability to refine crude oil plays an essential role in the supply and demand equation." -- Alan Caruba
"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid huffs that global warming is ‘the most critical issue of our time.' Really? More critical than energy prices? Than health care? Than wages? Than terrorism? Than nuclear proliferation? Keep huffing, Mr. Reid -- that deflating bubble needs all the air it can get." -- Rich Lowry
"The United States leads the world in too many areas for us to start imitating those who are trailing behind." -- Thomas Sowell
"[T]he connection will be made more and more between extreme weather that's occurring all over the world, the increase in water vapor, the effect of that. It's amazing how some people who doubt global warming, I guess like Rush Limbaugh, want to wait until the oceans overcome our literal landscapes, and I don't know what more evidence they're going to require." -- presidential candidate Ralph Nader
"It's going to be before Obama, ‘B.B.,' and after Obama -- 'A.B.' -- and some folks need to get used to this... We need a real Chocolate City... It's going to be a new day. Not just a new day, a better day." -- director Spike Lee
"Barack Obama, the Different Kind of Presidential Candidate, has begun his metamorphosis into the same old kind of presidential candidate by backing away from his earlier promise to accept public financing. Naturally, he claims it wasn't a promise at all but just a possibility, depending on whether John McCain would agree to accept public financing, too, which Sen. McCain did, and on various other escape clauses. We all know the drill by now: When caught in an obvious contradiction, obfuscate." -- Paul Greenberg
"Barack Obama's campaign reported it may raise a hundred million dollars in the month of June alone. It's the best month in political fundraising history. He's lucky the Senate killed that windfall profits tax before he had to pay it himself." -- Argus Hamilton
"I, for one, am getting sick and tired of being played by the Obama crowd. Michelle didn't mean she'd never been proud of America, Barack didn't mean Iran was a small country we had no reason to fear, and Father Pfleger didn't mean a word of his racist screed. Right... and a bear doesn't make do-do in the woods." -- Burt Prelutsky
"[O]nly a true Orwellain could actually play the race card in order to complain that someone else might play it." -- Arnold Ahlert
"Apparently, men and women are still not equal partners. In fact, they're so unequal that they're more or less stuck in the same trends of 90 years ago, despite our best efforts to get men to be better women and women to be better men. Alas, still foiled." -- Kathleen Parker
"Barack Obama announced this week he'll visit Iraq and Afghanistan before the election in November. He said he wants to see an area that's been overrun by violent extremists. So, sounds like he already misses his old church." -- Jay Leno
"Today's ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller makes clear that other municipalities like Chicago that have banned handguns have infringed on the constitutional rights of Americans. Unlike the elitist view that believes Americans cling to guns out of bitterness, today's ruling recognizes that gun ownership is a fundamental right -- sacred, just as the right to free speech and assembly... This ruling does not mark the end of our struggle against those who seek to limit the rights of law-abiding citizens. We must always remain vigilant in defense of our freedoms. But today, the Supreme Court ended forever the specious argument that the Second Amendment did not confer an individual right to keep and bear arms." -- John McCain
"Washington, D. C., will become a safer place to live and work thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Thursday against the city's absolute ban on handguns... As someone who lived in the District at the time the city imposed its ban 32 years ago, I say it's about time... The D. C. gun ban never made a dent in the city's gun crime; it still ranks among the most dangerous places in America. At least now, the Supreme Court has acknowledged the constitutional right of law-abiding citizens to protect their own lives when the police can't." -- Linda Chavez
"I am profoundly disappointed in Justice Roberts and Justice Alito, both of whom assured us of their respect for precedent. With this decision, 70 years of precedent has gone out the window. And I believe the people of this great country will be less safe because of it." -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who said of her own "right-to-carry" permit a few years back, "I know the urge to arm yourself because that's what I did. I was trained in firearms. I carried a concealed weapon. I made the determination that if somebody was going to try to take me out, I was going to take them with me."