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web posted November 24, 2008

"Now that distrust of markets is high, Americans are supposed to believe that the institution they trust least -- Congress -- will pony up $1 trillion and then passively recede, never putting its 10 thumbs, like a manic Jack Horner, into the pie? Surely Congress will direct the executive branch to show compassion for this, that and the other industry. And it will mandate 'socially responsible' spending -- an infinitely elastic term -- by the favored companies." -- columnist George Will

"What we are watching is Carter-esque interference with the economy. President Bush's handling of this economic debacle will go down as the biggest black mark on his legacy. While supposedly touting the importance of capitalism, Bush has embraced the same Keynesian solutions that trashed the economy during the 1930s and 1970s. And both Republicans and Democrats go right along with him, psychotically citing the Great Depression while ignoring the basic fact that Presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's tinkering made a depression into the Great Depression. The bailout is a disaster." -- columnist Ben Shapiro

"Yes, letting GM go into bankruptcy would be scary. But a GM bailout merely kicks GM's problems down the road while spreading the fear about where Uncle Sam's big feet will land next. Besides, bankruptcy isn't the end of the world. It's the means by which bad companies restructure to fix themselves. Bailouts are the means by which governments subsidize bad companies." -- National Review editor Jonah Goldberg

"As usual, government's stumbling, bureaucratic 'solutions' exacerbate problems that free people, allowed to pursue their own self-interest, would address on their own. We'd still suffer some tough times -- it's painful when bubbles pop -- but recovery comes sooner when businesses must quickly fix their own mistakes -- or die." -- John Stossel, co-anchor of ABC News' "20/20"

"Part of the problem is that we have enjoyed such unparalleled freedoms and prosperity that we have been lulled into the false notion that they will continue in perpetuity, even as we betray, to ever-greater extremes, our founding principles. But traditionalists understand that there is a tipping point beyond which this incessant socialist piggybacking on our capitalistic economic system and these ever-deepening encroachments on our scheme of government (for example, through judicial activism) will finally bring us to our knees." -- columnist David Limbaugh

"[W]e should move the president's inauguration up to the first Tuesday in December, one month after the election. The new Congress should have its schedule moved from early January to early December. That would allow a few weeks before the holidays to get urgent business done. When the Constitution was framed, things moved more slowly. That may explain the March date. The January date was an improvement. But the time lag still is too long in these modern times when crises need the earliest possible attention. People who elect a new president are eager for the change to take place. The sooner the better." -- USA Today founder Al Neuharth

"Is there -- is -- do you have this little bit of a sense, can there be -- can a guy who's cool be president of the United States?" -- CBS's Harry Smith discussing Obama with GQ deputy editor Michael Hainey

"I'll bet that most Post journalists voted for Obama. I did. There are centrists at The Post as well. But the conservatives I know here feel so outnumbered that they don't even want to be quoted by name in a memo." -- Washington Post Ombudsman Deborah Howell

"I don't understand it. Why would [Barack Obama] pick [Hillary Clinton for secretary of state]? I thought we were done with the Clintons. She'll just use it to build her power base. It's Machiavellian. And then we'll have Bill Clinton, too. I thought Obama didn't want drama. He's already got [chief of staff Rahm] Emanuel and [transition team leader John] Podesta. He'll have even more drama with her. She's just a soap opera. If he doesn't pick her, everyone will say she's been dissed again, we'll have to live through that again." -- MSNBC's Chris Matthews

"The consensus is this, that we have to do whatever it takes to get this economy moving again, that ... we're going to have to spend money now to stimulate the economy." -- Barack Obama

"[W]e already have too much union-busting and too much [inaudible] for the [inaudible] worker in this country for us to now say by the way, if you're a company and you haven't been able to totally get rid of the unions, then go bankrupt and rewrite, write down the contracts." -- Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) on why GM can't go bankrupt

"The adoption of a robust recovery package should be the top priority of the upcoming lame duck session. That is why I intend to seek consent on a bill to create jobs, prevent large tax increases and cuts in state services, strengthen our nation's manufacturing sector, and assist those struggling to find a job." -- Senate Demo Leader Harry Reid D-NV) regurgitating the political lie that a Senate bill can "create jobs"

"I think the world is about to change for the better. Bush ruined it and now people have no choice but to try to put it back together. He's like Humpty Dumpty." -- "comedienne" Roseanne Barr

"The original $700 billion bailout is TARP, for Troubled Asset Recovery Program. We should call the handout frenzy the Capital Assets Recovery Program. CRAP, for short." -- Wesley Pruden, editor emeritus of The Washington Times

"The United Auto Workers said Saturday they won't make any concessions on wages or benefits to help the Big Three. First things first. Investors are just starting to realize that General Motors is a health care provider that makes cars on the side." -- comedian Argus Hamilton

"If you're a good enough organizer, panderer, and BS artist, you can get elected against a truth teller. No one wants to believe reality when they can look forward to 'hope' and 'change' especially 'change' that will energize 'hope' and 'hope' that'll bring about 'change.' Wow! I feel like dancing amongst the daffodils, don't you?" -- comedian Dave Weinbaum

"We've managed to pick 42 Presidents before (43 if you count Grover Cleveland twice) without declaring any holidays before they even took office. Let's calm down." -- columnist Michael Graham

"Barack Obama said that since he won the election he has slept in his own bed every night. After hearing this, Bill Clinton said, 'Man, this guy has a lot to learn'." -- comedian Conan O'Brien

"Actually this works out great for the Clintons. While Hillary is concentrating on foreign affairs, Bill can get back to concentrating on domestic affairs." -- Jay Leno on the possibility that Hillary Clinton will be offered Secretary of State

web posted November 17, 2008

"[M]any of the indices for the GOP are dreadful, especially that they lost the vote of two-thirds of those aged 18 to 29. They lost a generation! If that continues in coming years, it will be a rolling wave of doom." -- Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan

"Still, the Republican Party retains a remarkably strong pulse, considering that McCain's often chaotic campaign earned 46 percent of the popular vote while tacking into terrible winds." -- Washington Post columnist George Will

"Obama will try to convert those temporary moderate and conservative votes of his into permanent liberal and moderate voters -- just as Reagan did in reverse between 1980 and 1984. If we conservatives can make our case, the election of 2008 will be a blip, just a kick-the-bums-out election. If Obama makes his case, he may have moved the center of political gravity to the left for a generation. Every conservative man and woman, to battle stations." -- columnist Tony Blankley

"The substantially enhanced Democratic majorities in Congress stand poised to pass a raft of legislation that ranges from the destructive to the abominable and the tyrannical. It will serve as an early challenge to the judgment of President Obama, and to the efficacy of the loyal opposition." -- Claremont Institute Fellow Scott Johnson

"If you believe the left is tolerant, open-minded and democratic, you're in for a rude awakening." -- columnist David Limbaugh

"Without a doubt, the most dangerous idea to liberty would be a reincarnation of the Fairness Doctrine in one form or another. Oh, it won't be called 'The Fairness Doctrine' ... It will be called 'The Freedom in Broadcasting Act' or some such Orwellian formulation in order to give the perpetrators a veneer of deniability. This is a favorite game of the left who never tire of redefining basic terms and changing language to suit their political needs of the moment." -- columnist Rick Moran

"There is a slightly creepy cult of personality about all of this." -- Newsweek's Evan Thomas on Obama

"Let me show you a map [of the election]... This may be the best map ever seen! ... That whole sea of blue across the country..." -- MSNBC's Chris Matthews

"Will the Obamas return to Camelot in the White House?" -- CBS's Harry Smith

"[M]edia scholars, including a former top aide to McCain, disagree [that mainstream news organizations routinely gave Obama preferential treatment]. They said campaign coverage often did lean in Obama's favor, though not -- as many conservatives have suggested -- because of a hidden liberal agenda on the part of the media. Instead, academic experts said, Obama benefited largely from the dynamics of the campaign itself and the media's tendency to focus on the 'horse race'..." -- Reuters' Steve Gorman

"I want to do everything I can to make this thing work, this new presidency work. ... Yeah, it is my job. My job is to help this country ...[to] make this work successfully, because this country needs a successful presidency more than anything right now." -- MSNBC's Chris Matthews

"But now we have the delicious irony that a white president from a patrician family, whose administration was so negligent about America's poor and black citizens, was so incompetent that he helped elect the first black president." -- New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd

"I have spoken to all of [the former presidents], that are living, obviously, President Clinton -- I didn't want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about, you know, doing any séances." -- Barack Obama on getting ready to be president

"Nancy Reagan consulted with an astrologer about Ronald Reagan's schedule after he was shot. It was actually Hillary Clinton who was reported to have engaged in séance-like sessions in which she communed with the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt." -- Fox News' Jim Angle

"For the last seven years we have had the highest corporate profit ever in American history. ... But it hasn't been shared, and that's the problem, because we have been guided by a Republican administration who believes in the simplistic notion that people who have wealth are entitled to keep it. They have an antipathy toward the means of redistributing wealth. And they may be able to sustain that for a while, but it doesn't work in the long run." -- Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA)

"We don't need all these fancy new weapons." -- Rep. Barney Frank (S-MA), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, aligning himself with Obama's plan to cut the military budget by 25 percent

"We have postponed dealing with an energy crisis since 1974. We had a crisis; we kicked it down the can. ... We had a health care crisis. ... These are, just taking those two examples, these are crises you can no longer afford to kick down the can. The crisis we have here, the American people know we have one. ... You cannot afford now to kick those down the can any longer." -- Rep. Rahm Emanuel, Obama's pick for chief of staff

"The inspiring and transformative choice by the American people to elect Barack Obama as our 44th president lays the foundation for another fateful choice that he -- and we -- must make this January to begin an emergency rescue of human civilization from the imminent and rapidly growing threat posed by the climate crisis." -- Al Gore

"Many of the voters that voted for Senator McCain were older Americans, and most reside below the Mason-Dixon line where racial attitudes and traditions die hard. We can change laws, but it's difficult to change attitudes. ... I'm sure that many of our people have unfortunately lost their lives because of the absolute hatred that is manifested now that one of our own has risen to such a high office." -- Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan at Mosque Maryam on Chicago's South Side

"The election is over and I'm unleashed. I'm telling you, if this were not the outcome, I would be doing this show from Northwestern Hospital with a drip today." -- Oprah Winfrey

"Pollster Frank Luntz, CNN's Soledad O'Brien or some other enabler would gush over how fascinating it was to talk to 'real people.' Indeed, so exotic are these creatures, most of the journalists actually observed them from the other side of a two-way mirror, like visitors to the 'Earthling Exhibit' on some alien planet in that old episode of 'The Twilight Zone'." -- National Review editor Jonah Goldberg

"[I]t wasn't that limited-government conservatism was a bad product; it was that Bush and congressional Republicans operated it wrong. A Rolls Royce is, obviously, a great product. But if you're driving down the highway at 70 miles per house and suddenly shift from 'Drive' to 'Park,' you're in for a world of hurt. Of course, it wouldn't be because the product was bad; it would be because you tried to get it to do something it wasn't intended to do. That, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly the problem with 'big government conservatism'." -- political consultant Chuck Muth

"Joe Biden was assigned the code name Celtic by the White House Secret Service detail Monday. It's critically important that he's protected. God gave America Joe Biden so that comedians would have something to do for the next [four] years." -- comedian Argus Hamilton

"Of course, lots of sour news about the economy. The federal government has announced that due to the bad economy, it is going to have to lay off 40,000 postal workers. Yeah, 40,000 disgruntled postal workers. What could possibly go wrong?" -- comedian Conan O'Brien

"As you know, President-elect Obama promised his daughters a puppy if they moved to the White House. He's already getting advice on what the best breed of dog to get. For example, Bill Clinton told him that the Oval Office is a great place for a husky female." -- Jay Leno

web posted November 10, 2008

"Ok. It was a bad night. It wasn't the blow-out the Democrats were hoping for, but it was plenty bad enough." -- Rich Galen

"I come to this moment of national decision with deep concerns about the next president. [Barack Obama's] victory is likely to unleash an ideological and vengeful Democratic Congress." -- Michael Gerson

"Obama ... talks less and less about bipartisanship, his calling card during his earlier messianic stage. He does not need to. [Obama now has] large Democratic majorities in both houses. And unlike Clinton in 1992, Obama is no centrist." -- Charles Krauthammer

"'E Pluribus Unum' is no longer our national motto. These three words are: 'Do For Me.' As in: What will the government do for me?" -- Michelle Malkin

"Politicians have immense power to do harm to the economy. But they have very little power to do good." -- Walter Williams

"Most change in America doesn't come from politicians. It comes from people inventing things and creating. The telephone, the telegraph, the computer, all those things didn't come from government. Our world is going to get better and better, as long as we keep the politicians from screwing it up." -- David Boaz

"Conservatism always has been and always will be a force to reckon with because it most closely approximates the reality of the human condition, based, as it is, on the cumulative judgment and experience of a people. It is the heir, not the apostate, to the accumulated wisdom, morality and faith of the people. ... Our challenge is not to retreat to the comfort of self-congratulatory exile but to sweat and bleed -- and be victorious -- in the arena of public opinion." -- Tony Blankley

"It's not an overstatement to say that this is what the world wanted." -- NBC's Dawna Friesen

"Look at how our attention was able to get pulled into pigs and lipstick and plumbers. We got a plumber who's the third member of the GOP ticket, in effect, and that's, it's all of our fault, yes, and there will be time to bloody our own backs with chains, but it's also the sorry state of our discourse as if, Tavis, we don't have enough serious issues to concentrate on. I think we may find out it was a movement year, we may find out we all had to step aside and just let it happen, and we may decide we went down too many rat holes of distractions on our way there." -- NBC's Brian Williams

"If you are hungry, you're not that interested in freedom of the press. If you are impoverished, you are interested in keeping yourself warm against the cold, and it's harder to think in Jeffersonian rights-of-man terms. Once those first two freedoms are secured, the others tend to follow. It's a very conservative argument that without order, nothing else is possible." -- Newsweek editor John Meacham, contending Barack Obama's platform is actually conservative

"[Sarah Palin] brought out the crazy people. That's what the Republican base is. The Republican base are people who don't want the queers to get married. They don't want a woman to have a right to privacy. They want to do away with capital gains taxes, which has nothing whatsoever to do with their life. What Sarah Palin did was bring out the knuckle-draggers, the mouth-breathers..." -- CNN's Mike Malloy

"We don't know a lot about Barack Obama and the universe of his thinking about foreign policy. ... I don't know what books he's read. ... There's a lot about him we don't know. -- NBC's Tom Brokaw

"The reason that we want to do this, change our tax code, is not because I have anything against the rich. I love rich people! I want all of you to be rich. Go for it. That's the America dream, that's the American way, that's terrific. The point is, though, that -- and it's not just charity, it's not just that I want to help the middle class and working people who are trying to get in the middle class -- it's that when we actually make sure that everybody's got a shot -- when young people can all go to college, when everybody's got decent health care, when everybody's got a little more money at the end of the month -- then guess what? Everybody starts spending that money ... and everybody is better off. All boats rise. That's what happened in the 1990s, that's what we need to restore. And that's what I'm gonna do as president of the United States of America. John McCain and Sarah Palin they call this socialistic. You know I don't know when they decided they wanted to make a virtue out of selfishness." -- Barack Obama

"As you know, whenever Democrats get in, taxes do go up. And if they go up and they work the way that Bill Clinton's tax plan worked, I'm okay with that. ... We want everybody to be able to go to the doctor. We want everybody to be able to do all the things they want to do -- then somebody's got to pay for it, and it's people making a lot of dough, and that's the way the American system has always been." -- Whoopi Goldberg

"Being a racist and a sexist was a good calling card for the Reagan administration." -- Al Franken

"Perhaps the biggest mystery of all is why anyone would want more money and more power in the hands of the federal government, which is really the basis of Obama's campaign." -- Burt Prelutsky

"I want to invite Senator Obama because he needs to do something... He needs to do something about those skinny legs! We're gonna make him do some squats and then we're going to go give him some bicep curls to beef up the scrawny little arms. But if we only could do something about putting some meat on his ideas." -- Arnold Schwarzenegger

"I disagree with Arnold Schwarzenegger about one thing. He said Obama needs to go out there and do some squats. He's already done squat! Barack Obama has done diddly-squat!" -- Rush Limbaugh

"Barack Obama's staff pleaded for get-out-the-vote volunteers in Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania. The memo said not to come if they're expecting a vacation, they should only come if they want to work. Look, if they wanted to work they wouldn't be Democrats." -- Argus Hamilton

"According to recent news reports, Bill Clinton has now become an adviser to Barack Obama. Do you know who is really upset about this? Michelle Obama." -- Jay Leno

"For now, we have a new president-elect. In the spirit of reaching across the aisle, we owe it to the Democrats to show their president the exact same kind of respect and loyalty that they have shown our recent Republican president." -- Ann Coulter

web posted November 3, 2008

"The United States of America -- five percent of the world's population -- leads the world economically, militarily, scientifically, and culturally -- and by a spectacular margin. Any one of these achievements, taken alone, would be cause for enormous pride. To dominate as we do in all four arenas has no historical precedent. That we have achieved so much in so many areas is due -- due entirely -- to the structure of our society as outlined in the Constitution of the United States." -- Bill Whittle

"Those who are receptive to Senator Barack Obama's plan to increase taxes on ‘the rich' seem not to understand that the issue is the nation's loss of wealth. Today, wealth can leave the country when heavy taxes threaten it -- instantly, in an age of electronic financial transfers -- and create jobs and economic growth overseas, instead of at home." -- Thomas Sowell

"I honestly never thought we'd see such a thing in our country... but I sense what's occurring in this election is a recklessness and abandonment of rationality that has preceded the voluntary surrender of liberty and security in other places." -- Mark Levin

"[T]hroughout history when dangerous, radical men have offered themselves up for leadership, their moderate supporters have rationalized their early support by hoping that the dangerous man is really a sensible man like them and doesn't believe some of those wild things he has said to his more fervent followers. But as the campaign clock ticks down to its last days and hours, prudent people have to consider the possibility that beneath that easy manner and calming voice [of Barack Obama] is the pulsating heart of a genuine man of the radical left." -- Tony Blankley

"Obama says the Constitution charters ‘negative liberties.' He wants government to do things to people, and he's mad that the ‘flawed' Constitution limits its role in our lives. He doesn't like the idea of liberty, and wants to change it!" -- Rush Limbaugh

"Instead of moving to the center, [John McCain] moved to the right. He put Sarah Palin on the ticket which pleased the right but, as we're now seeing in these polls, her appeal does not go much beyond that." -- CBS's Bob Schieffer

"But it must rankle you, I mean, to be compared to Sarah Palin." -- ABC's Cynthia McFadden to Hillary Clinton

"Senator John McCain of Arizona has retreated farther and farther to the fringe of American politics, running a campaign on partisan division, class warfare and even hints of racism. His policies and worldview are mired in the past... Given the particularly ugly nature of Mr. McCain's campaign, the urge to choose on the basis of raw emotion is strong." -- New York Times editorial

"The big unreported story is the tremendous spending advantage Obama's got... If this thing was running the other way, if Obama was taking the public money and McCain had opted out and raised $150 million in September, do you think The New York Times would have an editorial against it? Do you think any of their columnists -- do you think Maureen Dowd or Frank Rich would write anything at all about that? The answer is yes." -- former Democrat Senator Bob Kerrey

"[Barack Obama] is not spreading the wealth around. He's talking about giving the middle class an opportunity to get back the tax breaks they used to have... We think the people should be getting that tax break are not continuing to redistribute the wealth up. We think middle class taxpayers should get a tax break." -- Sen. Joe Biden, just two weeks after Barack Obama promised Joe the Plumber he's "spread the wealth around"

"[I]f the Democrats win and have substantial majorities, Congress of the United States will be more bipartisan." -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

"I know this has been a pretty mean campaign. I was on a television station the other day and doing a satellite feed to a major network in Florida. And the anchor quotes Karl Marx and says in a sense, isn't Barack Obama Karl Marx? You know, I mean, folks, this stuff you're hearing in this campaign, some of it is pretty ugly..." -- Joe Biden

"He's a terrorist. Rush Limbaugh is a terrorist." -- Joy Behar on "The View"

"To paraphrase Queen Elizabeth II, 2008 is not a year on which honest journalists shall look back with undiluted pleasure. This has turned out to be even more of an annus horribilis than 2004, when Dan Rather's fake Bush/National Guard memo fiasco redefined the ‘BS' in CBS News. There were so many mainstream journalists swimming in the Democratic tank this year, the nation's newsrooms looked more like overcrowded aquariums at PetSmart." -- Michelle Malkin

"In short, Obama and his disciples only demand one kind of transcendence from all Americans. We must, as Obama likes to say, unite as one people, one nation, one American family and transcend all of our misgivings about Barack Obama. Then, and only then, will The One fulfill his wife's pledge and fix our broken souls. Only a racist could possibly disagree." -- Jonah Goldberg

"The pollsters are stalked by the fear that they're getting everything skewed, since they're all saying wildly different things. Plain ordinary Americans are stalked by the fear that the campaign won't ever end. (If they're afraid now, wait until the morning of Nov. 5, when the campaign of 2012 officially begins.)" -- Wesley Pruden

"After his big speech in North Carolina [Monday], Senator Joe Biden said he was experiencing a sore throat and lost his voice. Boy, the good news doesn't stop for Barack Obama. Just one lucky break after another." -- Jay Leno

"You have to pinch yourself -- a Marxist radical who all his life has been mentored by, sat at the feet of, worshipped with, befriended, endorsed the philosophy of, funded and been in turn funded, politically promoted and supported by a nexus comprising of black power anti-white racists, Jew-haters, revolutionary Marxists, unrepentant former terrorists and Chicago mobsters, is on the verge of becoming President of the United States. And apparently it's considered impolite to say so." -- columnist Melanie Phillips

"If Senator McCain wants a debate about taxes in this campaign, then it is a debate I am happy to have, because if you're a family making less than $250,000 a year, my plan will not raise your taxes." -- Barack Obama in July

"If you have a job, pay taxes, and make less than $200,000 a year, you'll get a tax cut." -- Barack Obama changing his tune over two weekends ago

"It should go like it used to. It should go to middle-class people, people making under $150,000 a year." -- Joe Biden last week

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