Category: Best Line of the Day

Clever turns of phrase, special splashes of wit, provocative insight — all in a sentence or two.

Best line of the day, so far

“George W. Bush has been president for precisely five years. By my reckoning that means he can serve for another three years, unless, after consultation with the Attorney General, he exercises his Executive Privilege to void the Constitution entirely and declare himself President For Life.”

Joel Achenbach, who adds that he’s not saying that will happen, “It’s much more likely that he will declare that he didn’t really win in 2000, and therefore should be permitted to run again in 2008.”

Actually, go read Achenbach’s whole entry.

Best line of the day, so far

“If the Democrats are like the dithering ‘Desperate Housewives,’ the Republicans have come across like the counterterrorism agent Jack Bauer on ’24’: fast with a gun, loose with the law, willing to torture in the name of protecting the nation. Except Jack Bauer is competent.”

Maureen Dowd, who adds: “How many things do you have to mess up in the country and the world before you lose your reputation for machismo?”

Update: The Daily Howler reminds us who put the skirts on Gore.

Best line of the day, so far

“When I started designing websites, if the guy on the plane next to me asked what I did, I had to say something like “digital marketing” if I wanted to avoid the uncomprehending stare.

“A few years later, if I told the passenger beside me I was a web designer, he or she would regard me with a reverence typically reserved for Stanley-Cup-winning Nobel Laureate rock stars.”

Jeffrey Zeldman at A List Apart. He goes on to add: “Then the bubble burst, and the same answer to the same question provoked looks of pity and barely concealed disgust.”

Best lines of 300 years, so far

Benjamin Franklin:

  • A good conscience is a continual Christmas.
  • All would live long, but none would be old.
  • One today is worth two tomorrows.
  • Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.
  • Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
  • Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
  • Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.
  • Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.
  • Many people die at twenty five and aren’t buried until they are seventy five.
  • I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end: requesting only the advantage authors have, of correcting in a second edition the faults of the first.
  • If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.
  • I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up.

Best line of the day, so far

Bottom line is, there were many who thought as Alito allegedly did, [at Princeton] nearly forty years ago now. Many. Whether they admit it or not. Given my political slant, I’m not wild about Alito. But fair’s fair. Judge him on his jurisprudence and judicial philosophy. On statements like this: “I think we should look to the text of the Constitution, and we should look to the meaning that someone would have taken from the text of the Constitution at the time of its adoption.”

Which means, I assume, the Second Amendment applies to flintlocks only.

dangerousmeta!

Best line of the day, last night

“Have you watched any of these confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sam Alito? Senators are given thirty minutes to question the guy; thirty minutes exactly. Senator Joe Biden’s question took 23½ minutes. His question took 24 minutes. And Alito is smart. He’s brilliant. Do you know what he said? ‘I’m sorry, could you repeat the question?'”

Jay Leno

Best line of the day, so far

“The only thing standing between Joe Biden and the presidency is his mouth. That, though, is no small matter. It is a Himalayan barrier, a Sahara of a handicap, a summer’s day in Death Valley, a winter’s night at the pole (either one) — an endless list of metaphors intended to show you both the immensity of the problem and to illustrate it with the op-ed version of excess.”

Richard Cohen, who just takes the Senator apart, including this:

“But his tendency, his compulsion, his manic-obsessive running of the mouth has become the functional equivalent of womanizing or some other character weakness that disqualifies a man for the presidency.”

NewMexiKen mentioned Biden’s longwindedness yesterday.

Best line of the day, so far

“Watching the bobblehead coverage of the Alito hearings – and, frankly, just about everything else they cover – one comes away think[ing] that to them it just doesn’t really matter. Court decisions don’t matter. Policy doesn’t matter. None of this stuff matters. It’s just a game played between rival high school football teams and they’re just happy to go to the homecoming dance.”

Atrios

Best line of the day, so far

“Some good news — doctors say that Ariel Sharon is emerging from his coma and can move his hand. The first thing he did was give Pat Robertson the finger.”

Jay Leno

That was Tuesday night. Here’s the best line from Monday night:

“A judge ruled last week that mooning is legal in Maryland. Though that’s not really a problem because a lot of people who work in Washington live in Maryland and they’re more concerned with covering their ass than showing it.”

Best line of the day, so far

“A slipshod final play, where a crisp one might have allowed for a tying field goal try, left [Matt] Leinart looking dazed and diminished, like a boxing champ who got KO’d in the last round. I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sympathy. Then I remembered his sickeningly charmed life and snapped out of it.”

Robert Weintraub at Slate in a very good summary of the game titled “Don’t Mess With Texas.”