Clever turns of phrase, special splashes of wit, provocative insight — all in a sentence or two.
“A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation.”
“If the Republicans will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.”
“An editor is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and then prints the chaff.”
Attributed to Adlai Stevenson. Found at Daily Kos.
“That’s not flip-flop; it’s cow flop.”
Roger Ailes on Alan Keyes
Some friends and I were sitting around last week thinking of people who would be a better judge for this court than Clifford Vacek. Here’s our list —-
Judge Judy
Judge Wapner
Judge Ito
Judge Dredd
Judge Reinhold
Paula Abdul
The judge on The Bachlorette
“Most Texans sold their stock in Perry when dumb and mean hit $40 a barrel.”
Juanita, talking about the local politicos, and in this case the Governor of the Lone Star State.
A supporter once called out, “Governor Stevenson, all thinking people are for you!” And Adlai Stevenson answered, “That’s not enough. I need a majority.”
Via Daily Kos who got it from NPR.
Actually, you don’t need a majority, as four presidents can attest (J.Q. Adams, Hayes, B. Harrison, G.W. Bush). Gee, three of those were direct descendants of previous one-term presidents.
“If I know Republicans and their grass-roots operations, they’ll spend most of their time trying to phone bank the Amish,”
Kerry spokesman Mark Nevin
Found at The Rittenhouse Review.
Illinois senate candidate Barack Obama on why he will debate Alan Keyes fewer times than he had agreed to with Jack Ryan — [S]ix debates was “a special for in-state residents.”
Keyes resided in Maryland until Tuesday.
“Have you noticed how the Republicans and Democrats try to copy each other at their conventions. Like at the Democratic convention John Kerry’s daughter told a story about how he once gave CPR to her hamster. At the Republican convention the Bush girls are going to tell a story about how when their hamster was bad, their dad built them a little electric chair.”
Jay Leno
“Bush and Kerry tried to plan their schedules so they’re not in the same place at the same time. A tradition they started during Vietnam.”
Craig Kilborn
“And that’s why we have two branches of government.”
Heather Wilson, NewMexiKen’s very own Congressperson, in interview on Channel 13 (at about 50 seconds)
Link via Metaquerque.
“Bostonian Ratonian for Kerry”
Placard in Raton, New Mexico, at Kerry-Edwards train rally, as reported in the Albuquerque Journal
“If you’re going to surprise someone, surprise the terrorists. Don’t surprise me, I’m the police chief in Washington, D.C.”
Washington, D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey complaining that no federal agency bothered to let D.C. police in on their security plans. Quoted in story by NBC4.
Link via South Knox Bubba.
“The SEC and the even the Times goes to some length to avoid the colloquial term for this sort of behavior: i.e., fraud.”
Josh Marshall discussing the Halliburton fine.
“Department of Reelection Security Secretary Tom Ridge”
Alternate best line of the day (from the same item) — “I’m just glad Kerry didn’t get a bigger bounce in the polls from the convention, or the White House would have taken us to Defcon 1 by now.”
“I wouldn’t want to be either a criminal defendant against Kerry, or a negligent corporate slug caught in Edwards’s crosshairs. It’s like lining up against Jack McCoy and Atticus Finch simultaneously.”
The always insightful Charles Pierce writing to Eric Alterman
“When I was your age I was working double shifts at the landfill, separating the medical waste from the toxic waste for fifty cents an hour.”
And that’s why we need Clinton on the campaign trail this fall: as this week’s convention demonstrates, a publicly visible Bill Clinton, talking pleasantly and self-deprecatingly about his tax cut and John Kerry’s courage, will cause roughly 3.6 million wingnuts’ heads to explode by November 2 (margin of error plus or minus 3 percent). In Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Florida, that could make all the difference.
Kerry-Edwards: for a stronger America.
Clinton-Obama: for wingnut-skulls-a-poppin’.
“I like John Edwards (how can you not like Opie, all grown up and running for vice president?)”
“and the needle of destiny tightened its stitch and shuttled on.”
From The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason
“In a country where fewer than 50 percent of the citizens even bother to cast a vote, you’ve got a much bigger problem with your democracy than haggling over which kind of voting machine to use.”
Correspondence to David Pogue, The New York Times
“It gets really humid down at sea level in the summer!”
From Northern Virginia, NewMexiKen can only add, Amen!
“I wouldn’t urinate down his throat if his heart was on fire.”
James Carville, referring to independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader (quoted by Eric Alterman)
“Let’s make sure that the Supreme Court does not pick the next president, and that this president is not the one who picks the next Supreme Court.”
Al Gore
“Everybody’s guilty so nobody is.”
Correspondent Charles Pierce writing to Altercation (Eric Alterman) on the 9/11 Commission report.