Quotable

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on President Obama...

"It's very interesting to be with him. The most important thing that distinguishes him from many other people -- I won't name anyone by name -- he's a thinker. He thinks when he speaks."

Hmm. Wonder who he might be thinking of?

Quotable

"I am not happy about the way things are.  I pray for President Obama every single day.  But tell you what.  Homey made this bed, now he has got to lay in it."

-- "Actor" Stephen Baldwin at the CPAC convention today

Quotable

"Trust me, after taxes, a million dollars is not a lot of money."

-- RNC Chairman Michael Steele

I'll just have to take his word for that.

Quotable

"Speaking for myself and myself only, it is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do.  No matter how I look at this issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens. For me personally, it comes down to integrity -- theirs as individuals and ours as an institution."

-- Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testifying about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee

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Quotable

Writing in the New Yorker, Calvin Trillian claims to have predicted the Underwear Bomber...

In a book I published in 2006 called “A Heckuva Job: More of the Bush Administration in Rhyme,” here is what I said, in one of the non-rhyming passages, about the so-called Shoe Bomber of 2001: “I’m convinced that the whole shoe-bomber business was a prank. What got me onto this theory was reading that the shoe bomber, a Muslim convert named Richard Reid, had been described by someone who knew him well in England as ‘very, very impressionable.’ I had already decided that the man was a complete bozo. He made such a goofy production of trying to light the fuses hanging off his shoe that he practically asked the flight attendant if she had a match. The way I figure it, the one terrorist in England with a sense of humor, a man known as Khalid the Droll, had said to the cell, ‘I bet I can get them all to take off their shoes in airports.’ So this prankster set up poor impressionable Reid and won his bet. Now Khalid is back there cackling at the thought of all those Americans exposing the holes in their socks on cold airport floors. If someone is arrested one of these days and is immediately, because of his M.O., referred to in the press as the underwear bomber, you’ll know I was onto something.”

That’s right: I predicted the Underwear Bomber in 2006. You could look it up. Around the same time, I repeated the prediction in public appearances and, as I remember, a couple of times on television. (I firmly believe that, in this world of ever-diminishing irreplaceable resources, using a line only once represents the sort of wastefulness our society can ill afford.) And what transpired on Christmas Day three years later? Another bozo tries to blow a hole in an airplane and succeeds only in setting his underpants aflame in a manner that might have rendered him ill equipped for the seventy-two heavenly virgins who were to be his reward if he succeeded. And how is this bozo described by friends and family? Naïve. And where was this bozo educated? University College London, within commuting distance of that diabolical trickster Khalid the Droll.

Quotable

"Dream big but be patient. You never know when the next George W. Bush is going to come along and give you a once in a lifetime opportunity like he gave me, but you have to be patient."

-- an example of the advice former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales gives to his political science students at Texas Tech

Quotable

"It is starting to become clear to me what the GOP strategy is- they are trying to turn the entire country into California- an ungovernable mess where the majority is incapable of governing because of an obstinate and insane minority party and ridiculous procedural hoops.

"And when you realize that, it makes complete sense why no one in the Republican party stands up to the lies spewed by Sarah Palin, like, for example, this nonsense about mammograms and death panels. She is flat out lying, as she does most every time she opens her mouth, but no one in the GOP will call her on it because it is to their advantage to make the country ungovernable. They like it when there is so much bullshit and disinformation out there that the public is incapable of being informed. Sarah Palin is cheaper and far more effective than all the bullshit factories the Koch Foundation and others have been funding for decades."

-- John Cole

Quotable

“As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.”

-- Anita Dunn, White House communications director, on Fox News

"Rubbing the Sore"

I didn't care too much for "Mad Man: Is Glenn Beck Bad for America?," Time Magazine's latest cover story by David Von Drehle.  I don't think it did a very good job of answering the question posed in the title.  But I did like this little excerpt...

We tell ourselves a tale in America, and you can read it in Latin on the back of a buck: E pluribus unum. Many people from many lands, made one in a patriotic forge. And there's truth in that story — it conjures powerful pictures in the theater of our national mind. But it can also be misleading. Lots of Americans can't stand one another, don't trust each other and are willing — even eager — to believe the worst about one another. This story is as old as the gun used by Vice President Aaron Burr to kill his political rival Alexander Hamilton. And it's as new as the $1 million–plus in fresh campaign contributions heaped on Republican Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina after he hollered "You lie!" at the President during a joint session of Congress. Anger and suspicion ebb and flow through our history, from the anti-Catholic musings of the 19th century Know-Nothing Party to the truthers and birthers of today.

We're in a flood stage, and who's to blame? The answer is like the estimates of the size of the crowd in Washington: Whom do you trust? Either the corrupt, communist-loving traitors on the left are causing this, or it's the racist, greedy warmongers on the right, or maybe the dishonest, incompetent, conniving media, which refuse to tell the truth about whomever you personally happen to despise.

But we can all agree that — no matter where it comes from — rubbing the sore has become a lucrative business.

Apparently Alternet liked the article even less than I did.
Salon has an interesting article about "the man who changed Glenn Beck's life."

WTF?

I wanted real health care reform and all I got was this stupid t-shirt!

Meanwhile, there's absolutely no irony in this Quote of the Day...

“The American people are fed up with the political games in Washington, and I refuse to participate in an effort to divert our attention away from the task at hand of reforming health insurance and creating new jobs. Having apologized on Wednesday to the White House, we agreed that we must move forward in a civil manner to do the work the American people have sent us here to do. Health insurance reform is too important to take a backseat to political partisanship.”

-- Congressman Joe "You Lie" Wilson

Quotable

“We’ll find out whether people don’t want to watch a woman anchor the news or whether they just didn’t want to watch Katie (Couric).”

-- a "veteran television news industry executive" comments on the news that Diane Sawyer will replace Charlie Gibson as anchor of ABC "World News"

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Science Ponders 'Zombie Attack'

I'm glad scientists are focusing their attention where it belongs -- on the hunt for the living dead. Researchers in Canada have been studying a zombie attack and have concluded that we are doomed unless we strike the zombies hard and fast. It's a little more serious than it sounds. Professor Neil Ferguson, a UK science advisor, says the study has parallels with the spread of some infectious diseases, and adds...

"The paper considers something that many of us have worried about - particularly in our younger days - of what would be a feasible way of tackling an outbreak of a rapidly spreading zombie infection.

"My understanding of zombie biology is that if you manage to decapitate a zombie then it's dead forever. So perhaps they are being a little over-pessimistic when they conclude that zombies might take over a city in three or four days."

Sounds like a Quote of the Day, especially that last paragraph.

Quote of the Day

I've gotten away from writing about politics. I hope to detail why in a post soon. I've also gotten out of the habit of coming up with a Quote of the Day lately. One problem is finding a pertinent quote everyday. Another problem is that if I don't make other posts for a couple of days, I end up with several quotes in a row with nothing much else going on. So let's just call this the Quote of the Day with the understanding that it probably won't be a daily feature here, but hopefully several days a week.

To get back in the swing of things again, here's a lovely thought from Fox News talking head Bill O'Reilly...

The other day, left-wing muckraker Seymour Hersh went on MSNBC and said he had information, provided by the usual anonymous sources, that Dick Cheney was running an assassination squad out of the White House.

I have but one simple observation: If Cheney really had such a crew, Hersh would have been dead a long time ago, and so would most everybody at MSNBC.

Quote of the Day

“It has become apparent during this process that this will not work for me, as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the census, there are irresolvable conflicts for me.”

-- Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), withdrawing as the nominee for commerce secretary

Quote of the Day

"(I)t has been a difficult process. We’ve been very critical of the process. It seems sloppy. It seems that the White House has been off their game...And then we see a poll like the Gallup Poll that came out yesterday that makes me think that perhaps we overanalyzed it, and we don’t know what we’re talking about...Sixty-seven percent of Americans approve of Barack Obama’s handling of the economy...This looks like Barack Obama's still on top of his game."

-- Joe Scarborough of MSNBC's "Morning Joe"

Quote of the Day

"Eric Holder’s Justice Department stood up in court today and said that it would continue the Bush policy of invoking state secrets to hide the reprehensible history of torture, rendition and the most grievous human rights violations committed by the American government. This is not change. This is definitely more of the same."

-- Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU

Quote of the Day

“Americans across this country are struggling, and they are watching to see if we’re equal to the task before us. Let’s show them that we are. And let’s do whatever it takes to keep the promise of America alive in our time.”

-- President Barack Obama urges Congress to pass the economic stimulus

Quote of the Day

"Ultimately, I campaigned on changing Washington and bottom-up politics and I don't want to send a message to the American people that there are two sets of standards -- one for powerful people and one for ordinary folks who are working every day and paying their taxes...I think I screwed up and I take responsibility for it and we're going to make sure we fix it so it doesn't happen again."

-- President Barack Obama discusses the Tom Daschle appointment on CNN

Quote of the Day

"That is the height of irresponsibility. It is shameful, and part of what we're going to need is for folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint and show some discipline and show some sense of responsibility. There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to make bonuses. Now is not that time."

-- President Barack Obama responds to a report of $18.4 billion in Wall Street bonuses

Quote of the Day

I gave the Quote of the Day a brief rest following Inauguration Day. I was in such a good mood after seeing the former president on his way that I chose to ignore a lot of the posturing that was going on, most notably the gaseous bloviating of one Rush Limbaugh, who went into great detail about why he hoped Obama would fail.

I finally decided to restart the QotD yesterday, only to discover that there weren't really any notable quotes floating around. Then I happened upon Rep. Phil Gingrey's message to Rush Limbaugh to lay off the Republican leadership. Ah, a Republican standing up to the gasmaster! Good stuff! Well, uh...never mind...

From Congressman Phil Gingrey's website:

Because of the high volume of phone calls and correspondence received by my office since the Politico article ran, I wanted to take a moment to speak directly to grassroots conservatives. Let me assure you, I am one of you. I believe I was sent to Washington to fight for and defend our traditional values of smaller government, lower taxes, a strong national defense, and the lives of the unborn. In my six years in Washington, I have led the charge on many of these issues. In fact, in 2008 The National Journal ranked me the #1 most conservative Member of the House of Representatives.

As long as I am in the Congress, I will continue to fight for and defend our sacred values. I have actively opposed every bailout, every rebate check, every so called “stimulus.” And on so many of these things, I see eye-to-eye with Rush Limbaugh. Regardless of what yesterday’s headline may have read, I never told Rush to back off. I regret and apologize for the fact that my comments have offended and upset my fellow conservatives—that was not my intent. I am also sorry to see that my comments in defense of our Republican Leadership read much harsher than they actually were intended, but I recognize it is my responsibility to clarify my own comments.

Now more than ever, we need to articulate a clear conservative message that distinguishes our values and our approach from those of liberal Democrats who are seeking to move our nation in the wrong direction. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, and other conservative giants are the voices of the conservative movement’s conscience. Everyday, millions and millions of Americans—myself included—turn on their radios and televisions to listen to what they have to say, and we are inspired by their words and by their determination. At the end of the day, every member of the conservative movement, from our political commentators and thinkers to our elected officials, share an important and common purpose in advancing the cause of liberty, reigning in a bloated federal government, and defending our traditional family values.