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Lingua publica

The good and the bad...presented with permission from The Patriot E-Journal

web posted September 27, 2010

"The establishment hates people it can't control and who are not beholden to those who run it. Conservative candidates who are scoring well understand this is a contest between the Washington establishment and the rest of the country. The establishment has one set of interests and the country has another. The conservatives are beholden to the people. The establishment is beholden only to itself and those it chooses to admit to the inside-the-beltway inner circle." --columnist Cal Thomas

"Americans are fed up with voting for the lesser of two evils. What is the epitome of a lesser evil? A 'Me First' politician masquerading him or herself as a loyal member of a political party. As a conservative, I'll leave Democrats to deal with their own phonies. On the Republican side, despite all the hysteria emanating from those who think they know better, the electorate was three-for-three: a trio of GOP Me Firsters -- Lisa Murkowski, Mike Castle and Charlie Crist -- have all been given the heave-ho. As evidenced by their actions, it couldn't have happened to a 'nicer' group of duplicitous hacks." --columnist Arnold Ahlert

"'Politically correct' views all derive from anti-Western, secular ideologies such as anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism, utilitarianism, feminism, multiculturalism and environmentalism. These all share the aim of overturning the established order in the West. So any groups who have power within that order can never be offended or hurt because they are themselves offensive and hurtful, while 'powerless' groups can never be other than victims. This obsession with power is, of course, a Marxist position; indeed, 'political correctness' is a form of cultural Marxism." --columnist Melanie Phillips

"Why ... is President Barack Obama pursuing an international nuclear disarmament agreement? It cannot be because he thinks it will work. Even if he were foolish enough to believe that, virtually anybody in the Pentagon can tell him why it won't. His political advisors, however, can tell him how great that can be for him personally -- if he doesn't already know that. It would be 'historic' and an 'achievement,' just like ObamaCare. His political base -- the young, the left and the thoughtless -- would be thrilled and energized. That can translate into money donated to his campaign coffers and people willing to walk the precincts to get out the vote for him in the 2012 elections. It is by no means an irrational thing to do, from Obama's self-centered perspective." --economist Thomas Sowell

"In the long run, a healthy democracy needs qualified and able people of every party to function effectively. The tea party movement's failure to support candidates who meet that standard may help Democrats avert disaster, but it's hardly a recipe for a strong political system." --Fox News' Susan Estrich

"One of the things President Obama, I would say, would put on his greatest accomplishments list, of the early stage of his presidency is health care reform. It's something that he fought hard for and he went around the country singing its praises. Now here we are six weeks before a midterm election and Democrats are running in races all across the country and very, very few are talking about that accomplishment of health care reform. Why?" --NBC's Matt Lauer

"[T]here's no mistaking the public mood, and the truth is that it makes no sense. In the punditry business, it's considered bad form to question the essential wisdom of the American people. But at this point, it's impossible to ignore the obvious: The American people are acting like a bunch of spoiled brats." --Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson

"I have one small tweak to make to what the president said today -- he should stop saying that giving people tax cuts is giving people money. It's their money! A tax cut is when the government doesn't take our money. It's an important distinction." --MSNBC's Chris Matthews

"I can't give tax cuts to the top 2 percent of Americans, 86 percent of that money going to people making a million [dollars] or more, and lower the deficit at the same time. I don't have the math." --Barack Obama, who thinks it's all his money

"It's very important that everybody understand this. What the Republicans are proposing is that we ... provide tax relief to primarily millionaires and billionaires. It would cost us $700 billion to do it. On average millionaires would get a check of a hundred thousand dollars, and, by the way, I would be helped by this, so I just want to be clear, I'm speaking against my own financial interests." --the ever-charitable Barack Obama

"This is like a holy jihad to keep the tax cuts going." --Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-DE), likening the effort to keep current tax rates to radical Islam

"The problem I've seen in the debate taking place in some Tea Party events -- I think they're misidentifying who the culprits are here. As I said before, we had to take emergency steps last year but the majority of economists will tell you the emergency steps we take are not the problem long term. The problems long term are ... [w]e got two tax cuts not paid for, two wars not paid for, an aging population, we all demand services, but taxes have actually substantially gone down." --Barack Obama, complaining about all the wrong "culprits"

"[B]ecause of the Recovery Act and many other programs providing tax relief and income support to a majority of working families -- and especially those most in need -- millions of Americans were kept out of poverty last year." --Barack Obama

"I wrote the [health care] bill. ... The bill and I are one." --Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY)

"I was a candidate that was in some ways like the Tea Party candidate. I was a complete outsider. I capitalized legitimately on the dissatisfaction that was permeating our society." --Jimmy Carter

"The American people want their borders to be protected. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with making sure that people come across our borders, particularly our southern border, in a legal, safe manner. But at the same time we have millions and millions of illegal immigrants in our country, undocumented individuals, who are working, who are doing things we need done in this country. They're all over my house doing things whenever I call for repairs, and I'm sure you've seen them at your house." --former Secretary of State Colin Powell

"I don't hire illegal immigrants. On 'Meet the Press' [Sunday], I referred to illegal immigrants working around my house. I was referring to the many service contractors who work in my neighborhood, using mostly immigrant workers, who do good work. Some may well be 'illegal.' There are 11 million illegal immigrants in this country and most are working somewhere in our economy." --Colin Powell on Monday, one day after he "admitted" that illegals are "all over my house"

"If I come as an immigrant, you have the obligation to make me a citizen." --Barack Obama's illegal immigrant aunt Zeituni Onyango

"Maybe it's time to reconsider Take Your Daughter to Work Day. Frank Murkowski, Alaska's former senator and governor, took little Lisa to work in 2002, and now she refuses to go home. Shortly after taking office as governor, Mr. Murkowski appointed Miss Murkowski to the Senate seat he had just vacated. She was elected in her own right in 2004, but this year Alaska Republicans decided it was time for a new direction and handed her a primary defeat. Well, listen up, Alaska voters: You didn't put Miss Murkowski in the Senate, and she'll be damned if she's going to let you throw her out. On Friday she announced that she intends to run a write-in candidacy. (If you want to write her in, her name is spelled M-I-L-L-E-R.)" --Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto

"Jimmy Carter told CBS News Thursday that Senator Teddy Kennedy killed his health care reform bill thirty years ago to deny him credit for it. Don't blame the senator. The health care reform bill knew better than to get into the car with Teddy when he'd been drinking." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"Having suffered through recovery summer, most of us are waiting impatiently for recovery fall, which, this year, comes on November 2nd." --columnist Burt Prelutsky

"[I]f the recession has been over for 15 months, and this is how Obama and his handmaiden, Joe Biden, describe a recovery; then we should all party like it's 1929." --political analyst Rich Galen

"I can't say the GOP 'Pledge to America' left me either shaken or stirred. I guess it's okay politics at the ya-boo level, but the blather quotient in this document is awfully high. To my eye it has a deckchair-rearranging look about it. ... [T]he Pledge is probably a neat tactical move at this point in the game. It's just that our problems are much bigger, deeper, and more systemic than you'd know from reading the thing. I think this is generally understood, and accounts for the feeble showing of the Republican party in polls. As evidence that congressional Republicans have truly learned the lessons of 1994-2006 and will clean up their act if given majorities in November, it's not very convincing." --National Review's John Derbyshire

web posted September 20, 2010

"Even America's bitterest enemies understand why we mark July 4th with parades, speeches and fireworks: to celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence. We're proud of our nation, and justifiably so. So why do we virtually ignore September 17th? That's the date, in 1787, when our Founding Fathers signed the Constitution. ... Yet today, on many issues, this vital document is frequently ignored, even undermined, by some of the very people who have taken a public oath to uphold it." --Heritage Foundation president Ed Feulner

"While America's liberal elite have not reached the depths of tyrants such as Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hitler, they share a common vision and, as such, differ only in degree but not kind. Both denounce free markets and voluntary exchange. They are for control and coercion by the state. They believe they have superior wisdom to the masses and they have been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. They, like any other tyrant, have what they see as good reasons for restricting the freedom of others." --economist Walter E. Williams

"Why has the left directed so much time and effort into demonizing ordinary Americans? Because the Tea Party's three primary planks -- limited government, fiscal responsibility and Constitutional fealty -- represent the greatest threat to liberalism since its flowering in the 1960s. A smaller, fiscally responsible government dedicated to a Constitution expressly designed to limit the power of the state is the death knell for those dedicated to the idea their worldview must be imposed on Americans by an ever-expanding state. The left's worst nightmare is an America comprised of largely self-sufficient, clear-thinking individuals left to their own devices." --columnist Arnold Ahlert

"Nearly all of the tax cuts Americans have seen the past year and a half advance some liberal moral or social good. The overriding goal of the stimuli and tax breaks -- from the things we build to the jobs we save to the tax credits we get -- is to pick economic winners, steer us in the right direction and wheedle citizens to be good boys and girls. To offer comprehensive, amoral cuts would be to admit ideological defeat. ... This president would never surrender to such indignity." --columnist David Harsanyi

"If you read this weekend's New York Times' hit job on would-be Speaker John Boehner and his 'lobbyist friends,' you might think, as the reporter clearly thinks, that John Boehner is cozier with lobbyists than most powerful politicians are. But did you know: · Nancy Pelosi has raised almost twice as much money from lobbyists this election as Boehner has? · At least 18 House Democrats have raised more lobbyist cash this election than Boehner has. · Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid have pocketed more lobbyist cash in the past 18 months than Boehner has raised in the past 6 elections, combined?" --columnist Timothy Carney

"[I]t's both instructive and discouraging to look at the state of America circa 1938 -- instructive because the nature of the recovery that followed refutes the arguments dominating today's public debate, discouraging because it's hard to see anything like the miracle of the 1940s happening again." --New York Times columnist Paul Krugman ("What Krugman calls 'the miracle of the 1940s' is more commonly known as World War II, a ruinous conflict that cost some 60 million lives, including more than 400,000 American ones, and that entailed the near-extermination of Europe's Jewish population." --WSJ columnist James Taranto)

"[L]et me put this into perspective. First, it's not free. Extending the tax breaks to the top 3 percent of earners would cost between $650 and $700 billion. Extending it for the rest of us is going to cost a lot more, possibly $3 trillion. Everyone wants to pay less in taxes, but in an economy with a debt like America's, that may not be a brilliant idea." --CNN's Ali Velshi

"It will be the big battle to the finish line in November, and this is the question: How big a tax cut will you get next year?" --ABC anchor Diane Sawyer twisting language to say that keeping tax rates in place since 2003 constitutes a "cut"

"We can't give away $700 billion to folks who don't need it." --Barack Obama promising to raise taxes on those earning $250,000 or more a year

"You can't have Republicans running on fiscal discipline that we're gonna reduce our deficit, that the debt's out of control, and then borrow tens, hundreds of billions of dollars to give tax cuts to people who don't need them." --Barack Obama repeating the class warfare rhetoric

"Under no circumstances do I believe we should give a blanket extension to the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. It won't fix our economy and it will add billions to the long-term structural deficit." --Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)

"We stopped the bleeding, stabilized the economy, but the fact of the matter is the pace of improvement has not been where it needs to be." --Barack Obama

"Bending the cost curve on health care is hard to do." --Barack Obama backtracking on his earlier claims that ObamaCare "would bring down the cost of health care for millions -- families, businesses and the federal government"

"We are one nation under God. We may call that God different names, but we remain one. As someone who relies heavily on my Christian faith to do my job, I understand the passions that religious faith can raise. But I'm also respectful of people of different faiths even if they don't subscribe to the exact same notions as I do and that they are still good people." --Barack Obama

"[T]he UN remains the single most important global institution. We are constantly reminded of its value." --Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the confab of socialist nations and third-world dictators that constitutes the UN

"The Boston Tea Party was protesting abuse of power. This is now trading public power for the abuse of private power." --Bill Clinton on the new Tea Party

"[T]he reality is that my response means exactly the opposite. My idea, as the whole world knows, is that the capitalist system now doesn't work either for the United States or the world, driving it from crisis to crisis, which are each time more serious." --Fidel Castro setting the record "straight" after last week's admission that "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore."

"The fact of the matter is, this [Ground Zero mosque] has been used for political purposes and there's growing Islamophobia in this country." --Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf

"If the [Ground Zero] 'mosque' isn't built, this is no longer America. ... I am opposed to the building of the 'mosque' two blocks from Ground Zero. I want it built on Ground Zero." --leftist documentarian Michael Moore

"I'm against a mosque anywhere. I'm against a church anywhere, or a Hindu temple or a synagogue. ... [Houses of worship are] places that people go to retell nonsense stories from a time before men understood what a germ or an atom was, or where the sun went at night. They try to telepathically communicate with their imaginary friend. These are places that fleece people, and scare people and they perpetuate mass delusion. We shouldn't build any of them." --HBO's Bill Maher

"According to government auditors, the stimulus money is being held up because there aren't enough government workers to oversee the spending. So follow me, in other words, government workers who aren't there are needed to spend money we don't have to create jobs that don't exist." --comedian Jay Leno

"The Democrats ... are like the arsonist who works for the fire department. They will argue that soaring poverty demands more government spending." --blogger John Hinderaker

"Looking back with pride, the British are commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, when Churchill said of the pilots fighting the Luftwaffe: Never 'was so much owed by so many to so few.' Looking ahead with trepidation, Americans are thinking: Never have so many of us owed so much." --columnist George Will

"President Obama ducked a question about being a Muslim on NBC and changed the subject to his birth certificate. His religion is a bit vague. Somebody asked him what he thought of the Apostles Creed and Obama said it was his favorite character in all the Rocky movies." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"If anybody believes they can increase taxes today, I think they're out of their mind." --Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, Democrat

web posted September 13, 2010

"President Obama calls his latest attempt to revive the economy a 'Plan to Renew and Expand America's Roads, Railways and Runways.' I'm calling it 'The Mother of all Big Dig Boondoggles.' Like the infamous 'Big Dig' highway spending project in Boston, this latest White House infrastructure spending binge guarantees only two results: Taxpayers lose; unions win." --columnist Michelle Malkin

"What would probably get the economy recovering fastest and most completely would be for the President of the United States and Congressional leaders to shut up and stop meddling with the economy. But it is virtually impossible that they will do that." --economist Thomas Sowell

"Once you take it as a given that the government has an important say in what you do with your property or put in your body, a whole universe of appalling actions and apologia becomes possible. ... We can and will talk about what rights need to be reasserted, what programs need to be cut, what sectors of this American life need to be left ... alone. But until we make a dent in the widespread notion that there always has to be some type of government structure or some taxpayer-financed watchdog to police every imaginable peaceable transaction, any contemplated fix to the mess we're in will be temporary at best." --Reason editor Matt Welch

"Politically divided, committed to two wars, in a deep recession, insolvent and still stunned by the financial meltdown of 2008, our government seems paralyzed. As European socialism implodes, for some reason a new statist U.S. government wants to copy failure by taking over ever more of the economy and borrowing trillions more dollars to provide additional entitlements. As panicky old allies look for American protection, we talk of slashing our defense budget. In apologetic fashion, we spend more time appeasing confident enemies than buttressing worried friends." --historian Victor Davis Hanson

"Other presidents have been wrong. Other presidents have been misguided. Other presidents have been weak and pusillanimous and pathetic. Only one truly disdains America. His name is Barack Obama. ... Obama has no soft spot for America. The unpresidential condescension he feels for our country and its religion- and gun-clinging citizens oozes from his pores and spills out of them in unguarded moments. And that disrespect -- the kind that comes only from those who are clueless about leadership -- gives both aid and comfort to our enemies and leaves those who wish to share in the bounty of our freedom and liberty in the dark." --columnist Carol Taber

"As we're standing here looking at it right now ... was the stimulus big enough? ... There are plenty of economists out there ... who say what's needed is is a second stimulus. ... What about a more significant stimulus ... another, say, couple hundred billion dollars?" --CBS's Harry Smith

"Turning to the U.S. economy and the latest reading on the job market for August. Employers cut 54,000 workers from their payrolls, less than what analysts had predicted. The unemployment rate ticked up a notch: 9.6 percent now as discouraged workers restarted their job search. It's a mixed picture here, but it's giving some encouragement to those who are out there looking, some who are hanging onto their jobs and their businesses by a thread." --NBC's Brian Williams

"According to polls, Americans are in a mood to hold their breath until they turn blue. Voters appear to be so fed up with the Democrats that they're ready to toss them out in favor of the Republicans -- for whom, according to those same polls, the nation has even greater contempt. This isn't an 'electoral wave,' it's a temper tantrum." --Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson

"First lady Michelle Obama returned to the White House last week after spending her summer vacation walking the fine fashion line between comfortably casual and utterly camera-ready. Her travel attire served as a wake-up call to all those American tourists who have blighted the national landscape with their ill-fitting shorts, sad-sack T-shirts and aggressively revealing tank tops: You can do better." --The Washington Post's Robin Givhan chastising the unwashed masses of America for not living up to the celebrity standards of the White House's Socialist Bourgeoisie

"Hard-working Hillary, suddenly transforms once again into international political celebrity. ... And her hair is even back in the headlines. She's getting rave reviews on her longer, cool, new do." --ABC's Claire Shipman on Hillary

"[A]nyone who thinks we can move this economy forward with a few doing well at the top, hoping it'll trickle down to working folks running faster and faster just to keep up -- they just haven't studied our history. We didn't become the most prosperous country in the world by rewarding greed and recklessness. We didn't come this far by letting special interests run wild." --Barack Obama telling his special-interest union supporters in Milwaukee just what they want to hear on Labor Day

"[We've been] taking on some powerful interests ... who had been dominating the agenda in Washington for a very long time. And they're not always happy with me. They talk about me like a dog. (That's not in my prepared remarks, but it's true.)" --Barack Obama

"It will change the way Washington spends your tax dollars, reforming the haphazard and patchwork way we fund and maintain our infrastructure to focus less on wasteful earmarks and outdated formulas, and more on competition and innovation that gives us the best bang for the buck." --Barack Obama on the proposed government-run "infrastructure" bank

"I had nothing to do with the massive foreclosures here. ... I don't have any hand in what took place during the Bush administration. I tried to rein that in." --Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)

"[The Constitution] really doesn't prohibit the government from doing virtually anything -- the federal government. ... I am not sure there is anything under current interpretation of the Commerce Clause that the government couldn't do." --Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY)

"[T]here's widespread consensus despite what you may hear from some that the Recovery Act has saved or created somewhere between two and three million jobs already and is on track for what we said, which was three and a half million." --former White House economic adviser Christina Romer

"By virtually any measure, our economy is in a better place than it was two years ago." --White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs

"Nobody denies that the stimulus worked." --Anita Dunn, former White House communications director

"Right now -- and this is a problem for [Republicans] -- I do think Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, they are the leaders of the party. There is an intolerance in that party and an extremism that I think is where the real energy is, and so I think you'll see in '11 and '12 with that presidential primary, those are going to be the people who come out to vote. ... That's going to be a problem." --Obama adviser David Plouffe trotting out that tired formulation that merely disagreeing with Obama's Leftist policies is proof of "intolerance" and "extremism"

"Ed Schultz apparently has some serious audience envy, because he's now puffing his chest and saying he could also draw half a million people to the mall in DC. Perhaps Ed should try getting that many people to turn on the TV in their homes, on their couch -- before he attempts to make them get up off the couch and hear him speak about how people can't make it without government help." --TV and radio talk-show host Glenn Beck

"The only people I've ever heard of who got to wear their bathrobes to work were Hugh Hefner and America's judges, and however you may feel about the man from Playboy, I'd venture that judges have created far more havoc for society." --columnist Burt Prelutsky

"The prince has turned out to be the usual frog, a politician trying to spin his shortcomings as successes. A lot of people idolize a prince, but President Obama is learning that a frog is just something to step on." --Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden

"Hillary Clinton hosted the leaders of Israel and the Palestinians Thursday for Middle East peace talks in Washington. A genie once gave Hillary her choice of two chances to make history. He told her she could try to achieve peace in the Middle East or she could try to reform Bill, and she immediately told the genie to hand her the map." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"The only evidence for Obama's Christianity is that he faithfully attended the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ for 20 years. Yes, the guy bellowing 'G0d damn America!' is the one vouching for Obama's Christianity. That's like saying you got sober with the help of your A.A. sponsor Lindsay Lohan." --columnist Ann Coulter

"I am absolutely committed to fiscal responsibility." --Barack Obama in Parma, Ohio

web posted September 6, 2010

"[T]onight, I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country. This was my pledge to the American people as a candidate for this office." --Barack Obama, in his Oval Office speech about the war in Iraq using the words "ended" and "over" to describe it instead of "completed" and "won"

"I can't spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead." --Barack Obama, taking a shot at the so-called "birthers"

"I would have voted for [the health care bill]. But I think it can be done better, I really do." --Florida Senate candidate Charlie Crist

"If I misspoke, I want to be abundantly clear: the health care bill was too big, too expensive, and expanded the role of government far too much. Had I been in the United States Senate at the time, I would have voted against the bill...." --Charlie Crist

"Are you opposed to Obamacare or illegal immigration? You're a racist. Are you opposed to gay marriage? You're a homophobe. Did you oppose Elena Kagan's appointment to the Supreme Court? You're a sexist. After less than two years of complete Democrat control of government, there aren't many Americas progressives haven't accused of some sort of bigotry for simply having an opinion different from theirs. The politics of 'hope' and 'change' have devolved into exactly what those espousing them claimed they would end. Is this really Democrat's plan to win votes in November?" --writer Derek Hunter

"The Democrats are going to get beaten badly in November. Not just because the economy is ailing. And not just because Obama overread his mandate in governing too far left. But because a comeuppance is due the arrogant elites whose undisguised contempt for the great unwashed prevents them from conceding a modicum of serious thought to those who dare oppose them." --columnist Charles Krauthammer

"Those who mocked George W. Bush for openly declaring his faith in God and sharing that he prays to God for strength squawked about the horrors in Bush's allowing his beliefs to influence his governance. Apart from the mockers' misunderstanding of the proper intersection of faith and governance, let me pose another question. Are you more comfortable with a chief executive who, along with the overwhelming majority of Americans, humbly admits to reliance on God or one who projects the impression that he himself is messianic?" --columnist David Limbaugh

"Alan Simpson violated a taboo last week when he likened Social Security to 'a milk cow with 310 million tits.' But contrary to the dictionary-deprived critics who accused him of sexist vulgarity, the former Wyoming senator's transgression had nothing to do with his use of a perfectly acceptable synonym for teat. Simpson's real sin was 'belittling a bedrock program,' as the AARP put it -- i.e., showing insufficient reverence for a sacred cow." --columnist Jacob Sullum

"To those who say 'I paid into Social Security for years and all I want is what I'm entitled to,' I reply, 'You've been robbed -- get over it.' If you want to know who robbed you, it's called Congress. If you're angry about that then go into the voting booth and throw them out. Meanwhile some poor young fry cook at McDonald's is having his wages garnished to support the lifestyle of tennis playing Botox dowagers in Palm Springs. Is this right?" --venture capitalist Bill Frezza

"Then there's the vitriolic fight against immigrants, undocumented ones and in Arizona just people who happen to look undocumented. And, of course, there's the grand daddy of all prejudice, fear and hatred stoked up against Muslims in this country. Now, it's gotten so bad that a young man stabbed a cabbie in the neck and face Tuesday after finding out that he was Muslim. ... What black person, gay guy or girl, immigrant or Muslim-American in their right mind would vote for the Republican party? They might as well hang a sign around their neck saying I hate myself." --MSNBC host Cenk Uygur

"The Republican method for winning elections is hate. Hate somebody. Anybody will do. We have seen it this year with immigrants and now, Muslims." --MSNBC's Keith Olbermann

"The Reverend Al Sharpton, among others, worries that their day and King's legacy has been hijacked." --ABC's Claire Shipman on Glenn Beck's Restoring Honour rally

"That [Glenn] Beck is staging his all-about-me event at the very spot where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his immortal 'I Have a Dream' speech -- and on the 47th anniversary of that historic address -- is obviously intended to be a provocation. There's no need to feel provoked, however; the appropriate response is to ignore him." --Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, writing a column about Beck that says we should ignore him

"More government support is needed until conditions improve. ... The economic stimulus they pushed through Congress, for all of the fight, was too small. Standing back is not doing the country or [the Democrat] party any good. We believe Americans are ready for hard truths and big ideas." --New York Times editorial

"We're not giving them this day. This is our day, and we ain't giving it away." --Al Sharpton on the "Restoring Honor" rally at the Lincoln Memorial in DC Saturday, which was held on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech at the same location

"We are going to take on the barbarism of war, the decadence of racism, and the scourge of poverty, that the Ku Klux -- I meant to say the Tea Party. You all forgive me, but I -- you have to use them interchangeably." --Rev. Walter Fauntroy, "civil rights" leader and former non-voting representative for DC

"Unfortunately, there still is a great deal of confusion about what is in [the health care law] and what isn't. ... So, we have a lot of re-education to do." --Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

"We think a new label is absolutely needed to help consumers make the right decision for their wallets and the environment." --Gina McCarthy, the EPA's assistant administrator for air and radiation, on the EPA's new idea for a letter-grade system for vehicle emissions

"Putting more and more wolves in charge of guarding the henhouse might characterize the big problems we've now created for ourselves. Government is growing. The private economy is shrinking. Those wielding political power see fewer and fewer problems they believe private citizens can solve on our own. Soon, each one of us will have our own personal guardian bureaucrat. The real difference between us and the hens is that the hens are not paying for the wolves' salaries and benefits." --columnist Star Parker

"Just once, I'd like to see a government official say, 'We blew it, and you know what? If you give us another chance, we'll probably blow it again.' But so far, my hope has not availed." --columnist Steve Chapman

"In other words, [according to Obama's statements] Jesus was an important teacher, a really swell guy, a cool dude, and Obama likes him – a lot. This is to normative Christianity what Cheese Whiz is to French cuisine." --columnist Don Feder

"Who knew that the American public would get accused of bigotry more often after electing an African-American president than before?" --columnist Rich Lowry

"It's a free country. I wish it weren't, but it's a free country, and you got to, you got to respect that freedom." --Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, objecting to the Glenn Beck rally and typifying the Left's attitude toward free speech -- it's great only if they agree with it

"It's a free country. I wish it weren't, but it's a free country, and you got to, you got to respect that freedom." --Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, objecting to the Glenn Beck rally and typifying the Left's attitude toward free speech -- it's great only if they agree with it

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