Lingua publica

The good and the bad...

web posted December 20, 2004

"[T]here is something that smacks of tyranny about being forced to carry a national ID card. Persons who love freedom and are fearful of losing it will oppose any effort to impose one on them." -- Lyn Nofziger

"National ID cards are not proper in a free society. This is America, not Soviet Russia. The federal government should never be allowed to demand papers from American citizens, and it certainly has no constitutional authority to do so." -- Rep. Ron Paul

"The bitter fight over judicial confirmations threatens the quality and the independence of the judiciary. The mean-spiritedness and lack of civility reduces the pool of nominees willing to offer themselves for service on the bench." -- Judge Charles Pickering

"Judicial activism is an ongoing Constitutional Convention, which has the additional advantage for Democrats of allowing them to subject the Constitution to foreign editing and revision without risking the wrath of the American people." -- George Neumayr

"To make matters worse for the egocentric [Kofi] Annan, George W. Bush, the man who challenged the United Nations to live up to its own stated resolutions and responsibilities -- and was castigated for doing so -- got himself re-elected. And now, just as Annan is planning to put the arm on American citizens for a multibillion-dollar makeover for his palace in Turtle Bay, along comes his handpicked 'High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Changes' with a report that indicts the United Nations for its ineffectiveness." -- Oliver North

"Sudan, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe, Russia: one thing these countries have in common is that their governments violate human rights flagrantly and systematically. But another thing they share, astonishingly enough, is membership on the UN body meant to monitor and prevent human rights violations." -- Human Rights Attorney Joanne Mariner

"It is now, and always will be, the primary duty of the President of the United States to protect and preserve our nation, our people, and our interests with or without the UN. We must lead, because no one else can. The UN could follow, but it chooses not to do so." -- Jed Babbin

"Republicans will continue to win as long as Democrats remain the first party of big government. That wouldn't be so bad, if only Republicans would stop being the second party of big government." -- Paul Jacob

"I think Antonin Scalia ought not to be on the Supreme Court, let alone chief justice, because I think he lacks judicial temperament. ...[T]he second thing after a work ethic that you look for when you're appointing a judge or a justice is judicial temperament. That means -- in our judicial system, it's very important for the loser and/or the winner in any case to be -- to feel like they've been treated fairly and respectfully by the court system. That's what is [sic] the glue that binds us together as a society. When you are sarcastic and mean-spirited, as [Justice Scalia] often is from the bench, it leaves the...loser in that case feeling as if they were not respected by the judicial system, and that's why you don't put people with bad temperament on the -- on any court, and I certainly don't think they should be on the Supreme Court of the United States." -- Howard Dean

"If they, for whatever reason, decide to do this, it's not only wrong, they will rue the day they did it, because we will do whatever we can do to strike back. I know procedures around here. And I know that there will still be Senate business conducted. But I will, for lack of a better word, screw things up." -- Senator Harry Reid issuing threats should his Republican colleagues act to abolish filibusters of judicial nominees

"In Jefferson Parish, La., 8-year-old Kelli Billingsley 'brought homemade Jell-O cups to school at Boudreaux Elementary,' reports WGNO-TV in New Orleans...but 'the school suspended the girl for having a look alike drug,' despite having tested the Jell-O and finding no trace of alcohol or any other forbidden substance. Things sure have changed since we were young. At our elementary school they had a drinking fountain that dispensed a liquid that looked just like vodka!" -- James Taranto

"Maybe you haven't noticed, but the mainstream media are suffering from the perception that they're just the teeniest bit arrogant. Oh, who am I kidding? They behave like they're nobles or a priestly class. Dan Rather, Brian Williams and Peter Jennings might as well wear flowing ermine robes. From their palaces in midtown Manhattan they determine what the peasants see and read. They regard upstarts such as National Review, Fox News and -- shudder -- bloggers as little more than a motley collection of heretics, Anabaptists and barbarians." -- Jonah Goldberg

"Mary Frances Berry, chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, is resigning. Those scratch marks on the floor may be from her fingernails as they dragged her from the building by her feet." -- Mona Charen

"I strongly believe that the role of government is to create an environment that encourages capital flows and job creation through wise fiscal policy. And as a result of the tax relief we passed, the economy is growing. And one of the things that I know we need to do is to make sure there's certainty in the tax code -- not only simplification of the tax code, but certainty in the tax code." -- George W. Bush

"Taxpayers should demand results from those entrusted with our money, but the President must lead the way. In his first term, he vetoed not one spending bill. He should begin asking some questions: Why do we need so many cabinet and sub-cabinet agencies? Why does government always grow, no matter which party controls it? Any agency that fails to produce results at a reasonable price should be eliminated and the savings applied to the deficit or refunded to the taxpayers." -- Cal Thomas

"I am so old that I can remember when we called illegal aliens illegal aliens, when people paid their own medical bills, and when New Yorker cartoons were funny." -- Thomas Sowell

web posted December 13, 2004

"Academic freedom is not only meant to protect professors; it is also supposed to ensure students' right to learn without being molested. When instructors use their classrooms to indoctrinate and propagandize, they cheat those students and betray the academic mission they are entrusted with. That should be intolerable to honest men and women of every stripe -- liberals and conservatives alike." -- Jeff Jacoby

"If you don't like living in a divided country, all you have to do is get yourself appointed to the university faculty somewhere and you will be able to experience the joys of living in a one-party state." -- James Taranto

"The opponents of democracy in Iraq aren't just remnants of Saddam's regime. Among those captured and killed in Fallujah and Ramadi are Jihadists -- not insurgents -- from at least 12 different countries including Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon.... They came to Iraq to stop the January election. They -- and those who enticed them to the 'Jihad' -- know that women's suffrage, private property rights and respect for other religions, all part of the Iraqi election, will have the equivalent effect of a nuclear bomb." -- Oliver North

"As one looks at the actual departure of Brokaw and the pending departure of Rather this spring, it seems to me that when you come right down to it old anchors and old soldiers have one thing in common. As Doug MacArthur noted: they never die, they simply fade away. I refer any doubters to Walter Cronkite." -- Lyn Nofziger

"If we become a people who are willing to give up our money and our freedom in exchange for rhetoric and promises, then nothing can save us." -- Thomas Sowell

"This is a wonderful, decent nation, brimming with millions of people who take people as they find them and do what is right because that is their character. Moreover, the United States is chock-a-block with institutions, customs, and most of all families that encourage and foster good character as an end in itself." -- Jonah Goldberg

"While we as a nation are united in this fight, there are clearly deep divisions within the Republican Party, divisions that are impeding our fight against terrorism. Moving forward, it is my sincere hope that the Republicans running Washington will stop playing their political games and start fighting for the American people, just as our honored veterans did 63 years ago." -- Terry McAuliffe on Pearl Harbor Day

"It is obvious that the ACLU will never change in its consistent intolerance of the American principles at the very core of our great country; therefore it becomes increasingly our responsibility to fight back wherever our American principles are violated, challenged by the ACLU -- an organization that hates God, hates what is right and decent. The ACLU has got to go!" -- George Putnam

"The closest black woman to Bill Clinton was his secretary, Betty Currie -- whose principal function was penciling in 'Monica' on Clinton's 'To Do' list every morning. The closest black woman to most of the liberals accusing [Condoleezza] Rice of being incompetent is the maid they periodically accuse of stealing from the liquor cabinet. ... George Bush chose a black woman to be his top adviser on national security. Now he wants her as his secretary of state. And when she becomes the first black female secretary of state, Rice will replace the first black secretary of state -- both appointed by right-wing Republican George Bush. The entire Bush Cabinet is starting to look like an Image Awards telecast minus the fisticuffs and gunplay. Democrats are terrified that black people might start to notice. Say, there's a black woman standing next to President Bush ... who is that? Never mind! It's probably somebody he's arresting!" -- Ann Coulter

"Dante wrote that the hottest places in hell were reserved for those who remained silent in a time of moral crisis. If that's the case, Kofi Annan is in for a blistering afterlife." -- Joe Scarborough

" The president and Laura Bush sent out a record 2 million Christmas cards this year. President Clinton only sent half a million Christmas cards. To be fair, President Clinton did send out nearly 5 million Valentine cards." -- Jay Leno

web posted December 6, 2004

"Democracy is messy. It is messy whether you've been doing it since 1789 or whether you're going to do it for the first time in 2005. The trouble with Democracy is, you hold elections. The trouble with dictatorships is...you don't." -- Rich Galen

"The Netherlands and the rest of Europe face an enemy within its borders that will use European freedoms to take away the freedom of Europeans. They will avail themselves of continental tolerance to spread intolerance throughout the continent." -- Chuck Colson

"Our immigration laws are being broken en masse because America is unwilling to enforce them -- clearly, consistently, and unapologetically -- until it is too late." -- Michelle Malkin

"[Dan] Rather, who helped bring down Richard Nixon, was himself brought down by a gross inaccuracy and a type of stonewalling reminiscent of the president he tormented. ... He should have learned from Richard Nixon that cover-up and stonewalling can come back to haunt you." -- Cal Thomas

"Everybody is going to write what they're going to write, think what they're going to think, but we know the fact of the situation is my stepping out of the anchor chair is not connected to the storm over the '60 Minutes' story. This is separate and apart from that." -- Dan Rather

"Liberty has turned into licentiousness, and tolerance for dissenters has become little more than rank relativism and nihilism. All perspectives are equally valid, which means no perspective is truly valid." -- Jonah Goldberg

"Today's enemy is every bit as brutal as the enemy we faced in the Pacific during World War II, and they are every bit as determined to destroy America. The one difference between the Pacific engagement in World War II and today's War on Terror -- though the media ignore it -- is that we are making more progress in less time than during the start of World War II." -- Oliver North

"Liberals cannot win when Americans are allowed to vote, so they jam their insane ideas down our throats through the courts. In Bush's second term, there is no more important committee than the one charged with overseeing his judicial nominations. If Republicans blow this once-a-century opportunity to end the tyranny of the judiciary, they deserve to lose." -- Ann Coulter

"I know a lot of you believe that most people in the news business are liberal. Let me tell you, I know a lot of them, and they were almost evenly divided this time. Half of them liked Senator Kerry; the other half hated President Bush." -- CBS's Andy Rooney

"This jumbled tribute to history, Clinton-style, is not a museum in the classic sense. It tells deliberate lies. It tries too hard to be noticed. To be loved. Above all, to get in the last word. Which means Bill Clinton spent $165 million of other people's money for a glitzy homage to Madame Tussaud's -- where he can smooth out the wrinkles, White-out the warts, and paint moustaches on those who defied him." -- Columnist Andrea Peyser on the Clinton Library

"The Bill Clinton School for Public Service staff complained about the library opening in Little Rock. They say they didn't get enough attention. The staff hasn't been operating two weeks and already they've captured Bill Clinton's essence." -- Argus Hamilton

"Running against the first Catholic presidential candidate (at least in name) since 1960, Bush won the votes of 51% of Catholics. In Florida, Catholics voted for Bush over the alleged altar boy, 55% to 45%. In Ohio, Catholics who attend services weekly chose Bush 62% to 38%. Who says Republicans don't have Mass appeal?" -- Don Feder

"The Left sure knows how to recover from an electoral defeat: slander the electorate. For some strange reason, liberal activists believe that after 60 million Americans pulled the lever for George W. Bush, the best strategy to win back power is to call those voters stupid." -- Ben Shapiro

"Rather than admit that the Democrat party is controlled by a lunatic fringe of actors, Marxists, traitors, environmental nut-jobs and all shape, size and color of deviants, bigots and vegetarian bi-polar power freaks in hemp underwear, the lib leaders curse Middle America for their own failure." -- Ron Marr

"Boy, there's a lot of changes in the nightly newscasts. Tom Brokaw stepping down. Dan Rather stepping down. Soon the most trusted man in television could wind up being Geraldo Rivera. .... Rumors are going around on who CBS will replace Dan Rather with. I think CBS will surprise everyone by picking a middle age white guy." -- Jay Leno

"President Bush traveled to Canada this week. Canadians are not, we are told, happy with the President because of the whole Iraq thing. Memo to Canada: Americans don't much care what you think because we know that Canada's biggest asset is sharing a billion-mile border with us. ... Nearly 87% of everything Canada exports, it exports to the U.S. of A., which works out to about a billion dollars per working day. How about if we close the border to Canadian imports every, say, Tuesday. For a year. ... Canada's principal import from the US has been draft dodgers. ... Here's a good idea: Canada sends us its physicists and mathematicians, we send Canada...Michael Moore. ... A Canadian commentator on NPR earlier this week said Canadians were waiting to see what olive branch the President would be bringing. Canadians have so little contact with reality they believed President Bush was coming up there to apologize. For what?" -- Rich Galen

"I, frankly, felt like the reception we received on the way in from the airport was very warm and hospitable, and I want to thank the Canadian people who came out to wave -- with all five fingers." -- George W. Bush

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