Quotes of Note, 2003

Bush: Saddam deserves ultimate penalty. Okay, then make him listen to a Bush press conference!
-- Buzzflash, Dec. 17. 2003

Rumor has it that President Bush went to Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction ("Bush pays stealth visit to Iraq; President seeks to boost spirits of weary troops," Page 1, Nov. 28 [Chicago Tribune]). And as an old veteran, I find it amusing that the first place he looked was in the Army mess hall.
-- Roger K. Loeffler, Chicago Tribune, Dec. 6, 2003 ( thanks to Carolyn Kay for finding the quote)

Bush only learned recently, and from the King of Jordan, that the Pentagon’s favorite Iraqi is a fugitive from a 22-year old conviction for bank embezzlement? Such a thing would be possible only if Bush were a man so lazy and incurious that he never read a newspaper. He has claimed to be just such a man, true enough, but I took that to be an expression of contempt for the press. After all, nobody could really be such a glutton for ignorance. On the other hand…
-- Jerome Doolittle, Nov. 24, 2003

The right never, ever tells you what money does to families. Too much money can destroy a family in ways poverty never could. Not that it's good to be poor. As anyone can tell you, it sucks ass. We're creating a generation of Paris Hiltons on the backs of stolen money by CEOs. When a man lives in a multi-million dollar mansion and makes a hundred million a year, his kids are more than likely to become drug-using sybarites. Once upon a time, the rich, between their scandals, felt a need to be socially responsible. Sure, they had a mistress or two, but they gave to public causes. Now, in an era where the government defends unvarnished greed, these people have no idea of social responsibility. They are vultures on the common good.
-- Steve Gilliard, Nov. 15, 2003

MSNBC's "liberal media" mole Alex Witt squirms with captivated delight and licks at the bulbous knob of a hot microphone. The driver side door swings wide open, red ballons cascade from above like blood drops from a sacrificial gambit strung from the firmament and America's newest high school homecoming clod elect emerges from the cab grinning like the hideous engorged head on a fiberglass puppet in a Mardi Gras parade.
-- The Farmer, Corrente, Oct. 8, 2003

I've know Wes Clark for 20 years. He's one of the most gifted soldiers that I have ever had work for me.
-- Colin Powell, CNN Late Edition, Sept. 28, 2003

On PBS tonight, there was a documentary about the rescue of POW's at Cabuntan in the Philippines in January, 1945. This was made in preperation for the release of the movie Ghost Soldiers, based on a book about the raid.

The Japanese, had violated every rule of law and common decency in their treatment of American and Filipino prisoners, starved them, beat them and then murdered them in cold blood. As soon as the Americans landed on Luzon, every effort was made to liberate POW's in Japanese hands. These were risky missions done at the margins. Any mistake, and the prisoners would die.

In late January, Mac Arthur's head of intelligence, Charles Willoughby proposed a raid on the Cabuntan camp. Selected to carry out this mission was the 6th Ranger Battalion, the only Ranger battalion in the Pacific, the others served in Europe and Italy. Accompaning them was the Alamo Scouts, a unit so secret that its existance wasn't revealed until after the war, and Filipino guerrillas. The Alamo Scouts was the 6th Army's recon unit. Of the 104 men who served in its ranks, none died in combat, a record unmatched in US history. The two units and the guerrillas marched 30 miles behind enemy lines and in a moonlight raid, rescued over 500 POW's and escaped back to American lines.

It was one of the great moments in American military history, and not widely known for decades.

When you think of the level of dedication and professionalism involved, compared to our more recent antics, it makes them all the more shameful: no discipline, no fire control, no respect from the locals. It is painful to watch and read when we can be so much better.
-- Steve Gilliard, Sept. 26, 2004

Saddam Hussein called and wants to know where his weapons of mass destruction are. Listen Saddam, I already told you, I don't know. You’re going to have to call the White House on that one.
-- Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, Sept. 24, 2003

Hey, Arnold. If you want to give something back to California, start by refunding the money you made from The Last Action Hero and Jingle All The Way and the rest of those shitty movies in which you appeared. Because you sure aren't qualified to lead the state. The only thing that kept you from being the biggest embarassment in the debate was the participation of Stan Statham.
-- the other Roger Ailes, Sept. 24, 2003

So, Wesley Clark is running for president. Pretty amazing guy. Four star general, first in his class
at West Point, supreme commander of NATO, saw combat in Vietnam, won the bronze star, silver star,
the purple heart for being wounded in battle. See, I'm no political expert, but that sounds pretty good
next to choking on a pretzel, falling off a scooter and dropping the dog.
-- Jay Leno, Sept. 23, 2003 (via BartCop)

The general modus operandi of the Bushies is that they don't make policies to deal with problems. They use problems to justify things they wanted to do anyway.
-- Paul Krugman, Sept. 10, 2003 (as quoted by our good friemds at Corrente)

Virginia Thomas [wife of "Supremo" Clarence "Scalia Jr." Thomas] is whining on CNBC about the Miguel Estrada nomination. My opinion: tough shit. They started this fight and now she's whining about the results of it. The Dems played by the old rules since the end of WWII. It was the GOP who changed the rules because of their pathological hatred of Clinton. His moderate judges were rejected, often on the most spurrious of reasons. It isn't my fault that her husband is the most hated black man in America. It isn't my fault even school kids don't want to have him speak to them.
-- Steve Gilliard, Sept. 9, 2003

What pound of shame-faced POTUS flesh should Congress, Kofi Annan, the Axis of Chocolate, the CIA or the 4th ID non-com's demand in return for their sign-off on Plan Iraq, Version 2.0?
-- Daily Kos, Sept. 9, 2003

"Flypaper is the perfect analogy to describe Bush's Iraq policy. When is the last time you saw flypaper? Never, most likely. Nobody uses flypaper anymore. Why? Because it doesn't work. It's useless. It's a waste of money. It's a friggin' joke. I'd bet it's almost impossible to buy unless you travel to some inbred hillbilly surplus store in Knoxville, Tennessee."
-- The other Roger Ailes, Sept. 9, 2003

"One of my readers proposed the perfect campaign slogan for Arnie: 'Schwarzenegger: where steroids go to die.'"
-- Bryan Zepp Jamieson, Sept. 2, 2003

"The White House pressured the Environmental Protection Agency to suppress findings of deadly toxins in the atmosphere in lower Manhattan after 9/11 for fear public warnings would damage the economy. Between dollars and lives, Bush chose the bottom line."
-- Gene Lyons, Aug. 27, 2003

"Of course, it is ironic that a media company that should be fighting for the First Amendment is trying to undermine it."
-- Judge Denny Chin, moments before throwing out FOX News' laughable suit against Al Franken, Aug. 22, 2003

"Idi Amin, who killed tens of thousands of Ugandans in the 1970s, died yesterday at age 80. Not surprisingly, he was living in Saudi Arabia, friend to terrorists and Bushes alike."
-- the other Roger Ailes, Aug. 17, 2003

"It's an obligation you have — in our history there have been too many times when generals didn't say what they thought. We all swear an oath to the Constitution. One of the things I thought I was defending was the right to dissent."
-- Gen. Anthony Zinni (Ret.), quoted in the Toronto Star

war in vietnam, he signed up to guard texas.
they needed him in texas, he signed out to go to alabama.
they wondered where he was in alabama, he was no where to be found.
terrorists attack new york and washington, he goes to nebraska.
the entire northeast loses electricity, he goes to california.
are we beginning to see a pattern here?
-- Skippy, Aug. 15, 2003

"President Bush may not be on our list of America's best presidents, but he should be on anyone's list of America's best magicians! The budget surplus -- then you saw it, now you won't. Good jobs -- then we had them, now we don't ... George Bush's disappearing act is getting a little old to me."
-- Sen. Hillary Clinton, Aug. 15, 2003

Conservatives enjoy their virtual monopoly over the nation's political conversation, of course. They paid a lot of money for it and they intend to keep it. They dominate the national debate not because their ideas are better (or more popular), but because they have more resources and a vast, coordinated infrastructure that has been built up during three decades. They also tend to dominate because--unlike the supposedly liberal mainstream media--conservatives are perfectly willing to stifle opposition.
-- Joe Conason, from the introduction to "Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth"

His qualifications are that he drives Hummers and gets them. What attributes does he bring to the job other than an apparent face lift?
-- BuzzFlash on Arnold Schwarzenegger, August 6, 2003

When I examined the task organization, my estimate was totally contrary to this asshole Rumsfeld, who went in light and on the cheap, all based upon this rosy scenario.
-- David Hackworth in Salon, August 4, 2003

The Yahoo headline said, "Entertainer Bob Hope Dead at 100." Hell, if you don't know who Bob Hope is, you have no business reading the damn news.
-- Bartcop, July 28, 2003

" I personally don't get any
satisfaction that it takes 200,000 troops, 250,000 troops, to knock off two bums."
-- Rep. Charlie Rangel on Uday and Qusay

Richard Nixon could tell us a lot about peaking too early. He was a master of it, because it beat him every time. He never learned and neither did Bush the Elder.

But wow! This goofy child president we have on our hands now. He is demonstrably a fool and a failure, and this is only the summer of '03. By the summer of 2004, he might not even be living in the White House. Gone, gone, like the snows of yesteryear.

The Rumsfield-Cheney axis has self-destructed right in front of our eyes, along with the once-proud Perle-Wolfowitz bund that is turning to wax. They somehow managed to blow it all, like a gang of kids on a looting spree, between January and July, or even less. It is genuinely incredible. The U.S. Treasury is empty, we are losing that stupid, fraudulent chickencrap War in Iraq, and every country in the world except a handful of Corrupt Brits despises us.

We are losers, and that is the one unforgiveable sin in America.
-- Hunter S. Thompson, July 22, 2003

It's hard on the families. It's hard on the soldiers, and it's especially hard to know that you put your faith and trust into a president, and they continue to lie to you. They break promises, and it's hard to fight for somebody like that.
-- Jenna Hamilton, fiancée of a soldier in Iraq whose tour of duty has been extended, to Bill Hemmer on CNN, July 16, 2003

Somehow I don't think Bush will be too eager to count the overseas vote in 2004.
-- The other Roger Ailes, July 17, 2003

So you're saying FOX News is doing well because every country needs its Al Jazeera network?
-- Jon Stewart to Tony Snow, The Daily Show, July 8, 2003

I am shaking my head in disbelief. When I served in the army in Europe during World War II, I never heard any military commander -- let alone the commander in chief -- invite enemies to attack U.S. troops.
-- Frank Lautenberg respond to the Pretend-a-dent's call to Iraqi murderers to "bring it on", July 2, 2003

President Bush skipped quickly past the niceties and went straight to his chief political obsession: Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Turning to his Baghdad proconsul, Paul Bremer, Bush asked, "Are you in charge of finding WMD?" Bremer said no, he was not. Bush then put the same question to his military commander, General Tommy Franks. But Franks said it wasn't his job either. A little exasperated, Bush asked, So who is in charge of finding WMD? After aides conferred for a moment, someone volunteered the name of Stephen Cambone, a little-known deputy to Donald Rumsfeld, back in Washington. Pause. "Who?" Bush asked.
-- Massimo Calibresi and Timothy Burger, "Who Lost the WMDs?", TIME, June 30, 2003

Get media jobs: I think that was Item No. 3 on the homosexual agenda, right after "drive Chuck Colson batty".
-- The Other Roger Ailes, July 1, 2003

I'm glad that they cleared this up with President Xbox. He spent most of this morning at www.donotcall.gov trying to order Krispy Kremes...
-- TBogg, June 27, 2003 (tip of the hat to That Other Roger Ailes)

I promise just to serve two terms. Republicans do it differently. They just have son repeat the father's whole first term.
-- John Kerry

Bush IS in trouble. All this blather about him raising money and Howard Dean being McGovern and the rest of the Dems unable to challenge him is nonsense you would do well to tune out. An Army officer summed it up: Iraq is everything for Bush. And true to his pattern of mismanagement and failure, Iraq is coming up snake eyes. To understand Bush, you need to understand he's a gambler. Oil men usually are. But he's been spared the lessons of failure by rich patrons.
-- Steve Gilliard, The Daily Kos, June 25, 2003

The president and the Republicans believe that the solution is to take literally 3 trillion dollars ... and transfer most of it to the wealthiest Americans and let it trickle down. Well, I think most of you, most of the people I meet all across this country, are pretty tired of being trickled on.
-- John Kerry in Chicago, July 22, 2003

American soldiers are dying because Saddam was alleged to have a specific amount of hidden chemicals and pose a direct threat to our troops and our allies in the region. This is not past history. As you read this, some poor infantryman or MP is on patrol in Iraq and yet another teenager is going to come home in a metal coffin. Some poor Iraqi is going to have his home burst into and searched. In the real world away from the Beltway, real people are being harmed.
-- Steve Gilliard, Daily Kos, June 21, 2003

I guess if Ari had to rebel, being a Republican is better than being on drugs, but not by much.
-- Ari Fleischer's dad Alan, quoted in the Stamford Advocate (tip of the hat to Eschaton)

Journalists are now routinely relying on the Republican National Committee's missed vote tallies of the Democratic presidential candidates in stories about the subject, as opposed to keeping the records ourselves. nd we bet in almost every instance when the RNC numbers are used, there's no checking to make sure the tallies are correct.
-- The Note, abcnews.com, June 11, 2003

In one way or another, this is the oldest story in America: the struggle to determine whether "we, the people" is a spiritual idea embedded in a political reality -- one nation, indivisible -- or merely a charade masquerading as piety and manipulated by the powerful and privileged to sustain their own way of life at the expense of others. Let me make it clear that I don't harbor any idealized notion of politics and democracy; I worked for Lyndon Johnson, remember? But there is nothing idealized or romantic about the difference between a society whose arrangements roughly serve all its citizens and one whose institutions have been converted into a stupendous fraud. That difference can be the difference between democracy and oligarchy.
-- Bill Moyers, speaking to the Take Back America conference, June 2003

Hate online:
I flipped over to 60 Minutes just in time to catch her POS husband debating the repealing of the 22nd Amendment. He said something like, while he won't be the Democrat candidate in 2004, he thinks it will be close and he "just hopes it will be decided by the American people this time instead of 5 members of the Supreme Court." Earlier, I was watching some of the Dem candidates speak at an Iowa event, and Howard Dean was going on and on about George Bush "lying" about the reasons we went to war with Iraq. He said that he never thought he would hear again the words of 30 years ago, "What did the president know and when did he know it?" I wonder (since Dean's only a primary candidate)if I'll get in trouble with the Secret Service for being reminded of the old Southern saying, "He needs killin'."
-- The above post from a user with the screen name "FauxPaws" was removed from this thread on Lucianne.com, June 8, 2003 -- but we're sure the Secret Service will still be interested

Right now, we're at yellow [alert] for chicken. It's chicken because that's how silly these alerts are.
--Portland receptionist Colette Belusko explains the color-coded alert system to AP, June 6, 2003

If Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose.
-- John Dean, June 6, 2003

Pimping "his" new novel, Gettysburg, tubby sybarite Newt Gingrich explains the creative process:

"We are all PhDs, all three of us have taught history, and we all have learned that when you reduce history to passive memorization, you lose people," Gingrich said. "So we embrace the concept of an active history: In a particular situation, what would I have done?"

Readers will be sure to enjoy the scenes where the Union Army prevails at Gettysburg because General Robert E. Lee is off attending grad school and getting blown by his colleagues' wives in the back of a wagon.
-- The other Roger Ailes, May 28, 2003

[The Whitewater] saga was much more damaging to journalism than anything that Jayson Blair or Stephen Glass did --- the New York Times' and the Washington Post's persistent pursuit of the empty, politically manipulated story of Whitewater. The fact that these leading papers adhered to this hoax over the years by suppressing contradictory, relevant and exculpatory facts that disproved their premises, including the Pillsbury report and many other facts -- that's the real journalism scandal of the past decade or more.
-- Sidney Blumenthal to David Talbot, Salon, May 20, 2002

"He is objectively discredited. He will not be proffered any public post by any president into the foreseeable future. He will not publish another book on another virtue, if there is any he has neglected to write about. It is possible that the books written by him on the subject, sitting in bookstores, will work their way to the remainder houses. These are the consequences of the damage he has done to himself."
-- William F. Buckley on William Bennett, May 19, 2003

In February 1994, I had lunch with Tina Brown in New York to clear the air and to discuss future stories. All was affable and uneventful. When I returned to Washington, I received a call from a friend and former colleague working at the "Style" section of the [Washington] Post; this friend told me there was a campaign being conducted against me, that the "style" piece was a part of it, and that Sally Quinn, who still exercised some influence at the "Style" section, was boasting that I would soon be fired from The New Yorker. I called Sally up. She openly acknowledged spreading the rumor about me and wondered why anyone would make a fuss about it; that was just how Washington operated and nobody should blame anybody.
-- Sidney Blumenthal, The Clinton Wars

Uh. Oh. Bush promised to bring the al-qaeda terrorists responsible for the Saudi attacks to justice.
You know what that means.
We'll be starting a war with North Korea in about 8 months.
-- Hesiod, Counterspin Central, May 13, 2003

During a debate on a terrorism bill opposed by the NRA, one Republican congressman, who voted against it, summarized the sentiment: "I trust Hamas more than I trust my own government.
-- Sidney Blumenthal, "The Clinton Wars (tip of the hat to Atrios)

Top 10 Reasons Why Bush is Not a Hottie:
10. The brain is the biggest erogenous zone.
9. He still has to ask Cheney if he can borrow the keys to the F-10.
8. You'd always have to wear flats.
7. He was packing a cucumber in the flight suit.
6. Don't want Peggy Noonan's sloppy seconds.
5. First date is always a kegger.
4. Can't whisper sweet nothings without a teleprompter.
3. Has to fantasize about his mother.
2. His mouth isn't the only thing he shoots off too fast.
1. Once you've had Colin Powell, you'll never go back!
-- Suburban Guerilla, May 12, 2003

"President Bush may have blasted France for opposing the war in Iraq, but he doesn't mind eating French food.
"Translation: The White House pastry chef is Roland Mesnier, who is French-born and French-trained. And the president does love sweets."
-- Michael Sneed, Chicago Sun-Times, May 11, 2003

"To the Mayor and to the Mayoress! She'd never settle for being just the First Lady."
-- You go, girl! Starr Jones toasts Barbara Walters and New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg in a faux wedding ceremony -- and disses the First Fraud and his Stepford wife!

President Clinton had finished his speech with a quote from the late Chicago Cardinal Bernadin saying "It is hard to waste the precious gift of time on acrimony and division." People on the podium warmly shook the president’s hand, Blumenthal reports, but Chief Justice Rehnquist had been "chilly and expressionless toward the president throughout the morning."
Following the speech, Rehnquist turned to speak to Mr. Clinton. "Good luck, " he said. "You’ll need it."
Hillary figured it out. "They are going to screw you on the Paula Jones case, " she said while the president waved to the crowd.
-- CBS News Washington Wrap, May 2, 2003, citing Sid Blumenthal's "The Clinton Wars"

"It sounds like Ashcroft has a case of 'Rummy envy,that is, envy of the Defense Secretary's ability to make, without consequence, outrageous and assinine statements which are transcribed unquestioningly by a servile and cowardly press corps.."
-- the other Roger Ailes, Apr. 30, 2003

Al Franken: "Clinton’s military did pretty well in Iraq, huh?"
Paul Wolfowitz: "Fuck you."
-- overheard at the White House Correspondent's Dinner, Apr. 26, 2003

"He's my man, he was great. Somebody accused us of hiring him and putting him there. He was a classic."
-- Smirk on missing Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, April 25, 2003

"It's clear that Mr. Gingrich is off his meds and out of therapy."
-- arch-hawk Undersecretary of War Richard Armitage, April 24, 2003, quoted in the Washington Post

"They craft a plan to let polluters off the hook and call it their 'Clear Skies'initiative. They clear the way for timber companies to destroy our public lands and call it their 'Healthy Forests'plan. They say we can't pass our problems on to the next generation, then they create budget deficits that pour red ink all over our children's futures. They talk about racial equality, then they appoint judges with abysmal records on civil rights.
"In 2002, they even went so far as to defeat Senator Max Cleland, a decorated Vietnam veteran who lost his limbs in the war, by challenging his patriotism. Then, they appointed Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition leader who crafted the vicious campaign against Cleland, to play a major role in the President's re-election campaign.
"Need any more clues as to what kind of campaign they're planning to run?"

-- James Carville in a letter to Democrats, 4/25/03

Jon Stewart: What should the media's role be in covering the war?
Stephen Colbert: Very simply, the media's role should be the accurate and objective description of the hellacious ass-whomping we're handing the Iraqis.
Stewart: Hellacious ass-whomping? Now to me, that sounds pretty subjective.
Colbert: Are you saying it's not an ass-whomping, Jon? I suppose you could call it an ass-kicking or an ass-handing-to. Unless, of course, you love Hitler.
Stewart [stammering]: I don't love Hitler.
Colbert: Spoken like a true Hitler-lover.
-- The Daily Show analysis of the role of the media, as quited in Salon

"When the Clinton administration sent troops to quell the ethnic cleaning in Kosovo, we can presume Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.) was giving 'aid and comfort' to mass-murdering tyrant Slobodan Milosevic when he said, 'The administration's campaign has been a disaster. ... [It] escalated a guerrilla warfare into a real war, and the real losers are the Kosovars and innocent civilians.' What a traitor to America."
-- Brian Morton, Baltimore City Paper, Mar. 26, 2003 (tip o' the hat to Eschaton)

"Speaking of misjudgment, there is Geraldo Rivera, the former journalist now doing something or another for Fox. He has been asked by the Department of Defense to leave Iraq after he gave away the position of US forces there, as illustrated. However, Mr. Rivera himself says he has not been asked to leave, he is not leaving and is in fact further inside that country than ever before. Then again, given the problems he experienced in Afghanistan locating the relative whereabouts of a friendly fire incident, his backside, and his elbow, he might actually be in Nutley, New Jersey without even knowing it!"
-- Keith Olbermann, Countdown, MSNBC, March 31, 2003

"If you still believe that 3,000 elderly Jewish Americans -- many of them Holocaust survivors -- voted for Pat Buchanan in West Palm Beach in 2000, then you are a true devotee to the beauty of fiction!"
-- Michael Moore, Los Angeles Times, March 28, 2003

"In the last two years Mr. Cheney and other top officials have gotten it wrong again and again — on energy, on the economy, on the budget. But political muscle has insulated them from any adverse consequences. So they, and the country, don't learn from their mistakes — and the mistakes keep getting bigger."
-- Paul Krugman, New York Times, March 28, 2003

"Whether they are right or not, the leadership of the United States has a problem. And that is if we go to Baghdad with two divisions and there are losses, that's regime change kind of stuff. And I don't mean Baghdad regime change."
-- Col. Samuel Gardiner, NewsHour, March 26, 2003 ( a tip of the hat to Atrios)

"The fictitious reason [is] that 'Saddam Hussein is going to kill you or I tonight,' that's the fiction. The nonfiction is that we're over there because they have the second largest supply of oil in the world. Wouldn't you just respect the man so much more if he went on TV and said that?... What was the lesson that we taught the children of Columbine this week? This was the lesson: that violence is an acceptable means to resolve a conflict."
-- Michael Moore, March 23, 2003, backstage at the Oscars

If the war's most eager enthusiasts got their way, we could have no honest discussion of the situation in Iraq or the events leading up to armed conflict, because they have decreed that candor is equal to comforting the enemy. It would be impermissible to discuss the disastrous diplomacy that deprived the U.S. of international support, to demand truthful answers about his alleged nuclear weapons programs, to doubt the exaggerated connections between Iraq and al-Qaida, and even to wonder whether the price we and the Iraqis are now paying to destroy the Baathist regime will be far greater than the benefit. But of course the hawks' angry accusations about "enabling Saddam" only prove that their argument is, and always was, too weak to prevail without resort to demagogy.
-- Joe Conason, Salon, March 24, 2003

We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fictition of duct tape or fictition of orange alerts we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you! And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up.
-- Michael Moore, accepting the Oscar® for Bowling for Columbine, March 23, 2003

Roger's Crimestoppers Handbook Tip No. 1: Never hire a panhandling religious fanatic sub-minimum wage to perform roofing work on your McMansion, just 'cause you're too fucking cheap to pay a licensed contractor.
-- [The other] Roger Ailes, 3/14/03

Is the UK about to become part of 'Old Europe' too? Get new copy ready at NRO and the Weekly Standard! Quick! Don't get caught flat-footed if the storyline changes!!! Surrender Monkeys with bad teeth? Tony the Ferret? What will Jonah's new money quote be???
-- Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo, Mar. 11, 2003

Did Fred Rogers talk to children “as people?” As we face a dangerous and defining war, it’s just too bad that our press elites won’t talk to adults the same way.
-- Bob Somerby, The Daily Howler, Feb. 28, 2003

I think people, if they want to know what's going to happen in Iraq, consider this analogy.

Now they've tried to present it like it's all going to be rose petals on the liberators as they march down the streets in Baghdad.

No, what you should picture is Waco.

Iraq is Waco. Saddam Hussein is David Koresh.

He's a real bad guy, an evil man who's got an arsenal that we don't like. And, of course, we shouldn't like it, but I think right wingers always defended David Koresh because the idea was, Well, he's not using it. It's just going to make matters worse if we go in there. And that's what -- I've seen this movie. And in this case, our army is the FBI and he is David Koresh. And I know how it ends. The FBI gets decimated when they go in and the nut bar takes the whole place with him rather than give up his weapons. He uses them.

We are forcing this guy to use his chemical and biological weapons when I don't think -- for 12 years he has not so much crossed against a red light and suddenly he has become this menace who is about to attack us.
-- Bill Maher, CNN Larry King Live, Feb. 26, 2003

I worked for News Corp. -- for its Fox network and one of its cable sewers, Fox Sports Net, for three years. They were swine. Many companies are swine. But the Koufax episode is something extraordinary. This is the triangulation of swine -- three bullies beating up one kid called decency.
-- Keith Olbermann, Salon, Feb. 22, 2003

The worldwide goodwill that accrued to the United States—with all that means for the very real war against Islamist terror—is being squandered in an orgy of tabloid bullying and sophomoric xenophobia.
-- Joe Conason, New York Observer, Feb. 19, 2002

Liz Smith's great scientific breakthrough was the discovery that gossip can be nice, a concept from which British newspapers are genetically free.... That's why, as the banker Vernon Jordan put it in one of the toasts, Liz Smith celebrated her birthday in a room packed with friends and Matt Drudge probably celebrates his birthday in a hotel room alone.
-- Tina Brown, Salon, Feb. 6, 2002

It turns out that Chris Hitchens' detestation for Bill Clinton began in their days together at Oxford where, apparently, Hitch and the "Big Dog" "had a girlfriend in common." Hitch claims that Clinton was feeding information about anti-war protestors to the CIA.

Or maybe, he was just "feeding" his Big Salami to your girlfriend, and she liked it. A lot.
 
Could that be it, Hitch?

In any event, it appears that Bill dumped Hitch's girlfriend, because, evidently, Hitch drove her to become a "radical lesbian."
--Hesiod, Counterpin Central, Feb. 4, 2003

Your enemy is not surrounding your country. Your enemy is ruling your country.
-- former Texas governor George W. Bush, Jan. 28, 2003, in the most ironic line delivered in a State of the Union address in recent memory

All this huffing and puffing about Bush being a "strong leader" is just ridiculous. He’s fixated on cutting taxes and just hoping that we don’t get attacked again, and that’s not leadership.
-- Gary Hart, Jan. 2003

Being a man, I have got to say that we got this guy in the White House who thinks he is a man, who projects himself as a man because he has a certain masculinity. He's a good old boy, he used to drink, and he knows how to shoot a gun and how to drive a pickup truck. That is not the definition of a man, God dammit!
-- Ed Harris, speaker at NARAL Pro-Choice America's 30th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Jan. 21, 2003

The Democrats should engage in a focused "court unpacking" scheme. Just as Republicans stalled the appointment of more than 60 federal judges while Bill Clinton was president, Democrats should now stall all new appointments to the Supreme Court, as they come available, in what many still consider an illegitimate Bush presidency. With the Senate nearly evenly divided, Democrats could stall many appointments, allowing the court's vacancies to remain, well, vacant. Even if a more liberal-leaning justice such as John Paul Stevens or Ruth Bader Ginsburg retires, Democrats should stall what would be an inevitably conservative appointment... If the Republicans have taught Democrats anything, it is that if you play a truly muscular brand of politics, you can often run out the clock. They did it in Florida in 2000, and they did it in congressional nonconfirmations of judges during the eight years of the Clinton administration.

The Democrats should learn from the masters and unpack this court.
-- Max Page, Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 16, 2003

It amazes me that the media has largely ignored the explicit symbolism of two things Bush has done this week. First he declared a Sanctity of Life day on the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. Second, he came out in opposition of affirmative action, playing the dishonest race-baiting "quota" game, on the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. The timing of both of these things was of course deliberate.
-- Atrios, Eschaton, Jan. 16, 2003

The fact is that there are 100 nuclear weapons that were not produced by North Korea as a result of that deal [between the US and North Korea in 1994]. What they got was a few million barrels of oil. It seems to me 100 nuclear weapons, a few million barrels of oil, that's not a bad deal. And I must say, for some people in the administration, I'm beginning to think that blaming Clinton is a substitute for thinking.
-- Sandy Berger to Wolf Blitzer on CNN Late Edition, Jan. 12, 2002 (thanks to Atrios for the heads-up)

... This is an example of the mentality that Walter Isaacson pays for on CNN, and this is the white liberal hiring these kind of people -- you know just what I’m saying -- I’m not going to mince words -- making their statements have merit when there’s virtually nothing there. There’s no there there.... [to Charles Barkley] You couldn't shine my shoes, buster.
-- Michael Savage, showing his bigotry on CNN Talk Back Live, Jan. 8, 2003

Chris Matthews (host): Howard, did the Republicans have this thing completely knocked in this town? Is George Bush completely in control of Washington right now?

Howard Fineman (Chief Political Correspondent, Newsweek): Well, the interesting thing, Chris, is he's not just in control of the political apparatus, he's in control of the press, he's in control of the sort of social atmosphere of the city in a way that I haven't seen in quite some time.
-- MSNBC's Hardball, Jan. 6, 2003 (thanks to Atrios and Penalcolony)

Click here for "Quotes of Note" for 2002
Click here for "Quotes of Note" for 2001

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