QuoteLog

“When I read the list of people who are supporting Kerry, if I wasn’t already a Bush supporter, I would have immediately switched. Linda Ronstadt? Don Henley? Geez, that’s a good reason right there to vote for Bush.”

“The truth is that the only thing we like more than negative advertising is negative advertising that features a supermodel in a thong bikini and comes with fries.”

“To voters who identify strongly with a political party, the undecided voter is almost an alien life form. For them, a vote for Bush is a vote for a whole philosophy of governance and a vote for Kerry is a vote for a distinctly different philosophy. The difference is obvious to them, and they don’t understand how others can’t see it, or can decide whom to vote for on the basis of a candidate’s personal traits or whether his or her position on a particular issue ‘makes sense.’ To an undecided voter, on the other hand, the person who always votes for the Democrat or the Republican, no matter what, must seem like a dangerous fanatic.”

“Darfur already has become a synonym for dithering by outside powers in the face of genocide. Soon it may also deliver another grim verdict on the ability of the Security Council to back up its own resolutions.”

“You’d be amazed at the number of people who want to introduce themselves to you in the men’s room. It’s the most bizarre part of this entire thing.”

“Kerry’s charisma was less than zero: It was negative. He was a charm vacuum, forced to actually borrow mojo from audience members. He was a dessicated husk, a tin man who really didn’t have a heart. His lack of vibrancy, his utter dearth of sex appeal made Al Gore look like Charo.”

“For many pro-family voters, protecting traditional marriage ranks ahead of the economy and job creation as a campaign issue.”

“We’ve arrived at this juncture because it’s logically impossible both to honor the First Amendment and to regulate campaign finance effectively. We can do one or the other — but not both. Unfortunately, Congress and the Supreme Court won’t admit the choice. The result is the worst of both worlds. We gut the First Amendment and don’t effectively regulate campaign finance.”

“What’s happening with the bitter dispute over John Kerry’s role in Vietnam confirms my fears that my generation may never see the day when the baby boomers who came of age in that troubled decade are reconciled sufficiently with each other to lead a united country.”

“Character exists in track and field. You don’t have to be cocky, self-centered, mean or arrogant.”

“As a voter, I still say I don’t care. I don’t care about the Vietnam war. We are in a war now. We are in a war against terrorists and Islamofascists and for modernity and civilization and America. That is the war I care about.”

“To me, that’s treason. I call it treason against rock ‘n’ roll because rock is the antithesis of politics. Rock should never be in bed with politics. When I was a kid and my parents started talking about politics, I’d run to my room and put on the Rolling Stones as loud as I could. So when I see all these rock stars up there talking politics, it makes me sick. If you’re listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you’re a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we’re morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal.”

“You want to get young people involved in politics, reintroduce the draft, and, man, you’ll see voting rights skyrocket.”

“My Bronze Star citation, signed by Zumwalt, praised the charge tactic we used that day ... There’s at least one mistake in that citation. It incorrectly identifies the river where the main action occurred, a reminder that such documents were often done in haste and sometimes authored for their signers by staffers. It’s a cautionary note for those trying to piece it all together. There’s no final authority on something that happened so long ago — not the documents and not even the strained recollections of those of us who were there.”

“We cannot have a generation of young black kids growing up not being able to read or write. More importantly not wanting to know how to read and write. Because, somehow, in the twisted mentality we have today — which is really pumped out by gangsta rap — these kids equate getting an education with trying to be white ... Which is genocide.”

“Ah, the irony of American extremists reacting virulently to an American moderate, while at the same time wondering why Muslim moderates don’t speak out against Muslim extremists.”

“Nobody in the game of football should be called a genius. A genius is somebody like Norman Einstein.”

“Welcome to Greece. Home of Eros, the God of Love; Zeus, the God of the Heavens; Visa, the God of Debt; and Nike, the God of Shoes We Want.”

“An Open Letter to Bob Costas and Katie Couric, From the Citizens of the United States of America. Shut up. No, seriously, shut up. If the Olympics Opening Ceremony had been a movie, and we’d been in a theater, the entire audience would have beaten you to death.”

“Once you’re an Olympian, you’re always an Olympian ... It’s the whole process of going through it. If you just concentrate on that one day, you’re going to have disappointment.”

“I don’t care if ‘the world is catching up,’ or if Del Harris is coaching China, or if the best point guard in the NBA is often a Canadian who resembles the second guitar player from a Drive-By Trucker tribute band. This is just about the only thing we have left, and now we clearly don’t even have this. Even if we somehow bounce back and win the gold, it’s over for us as a nation; this is like when the Spanish Armada got iced in 1588. We might as well start caring about soccer.”

“While every race is different, if you haven’t made up your mind by now about which candidate you’re going to vote for, it’s probably because you don’t like what Bush has done but Kerry hasn’t yet convinced you to vote for him.”

“What we would like to see is a greater understanding of power, of the democratic system, the open market economic system, the rights of men and women to achieve their destiny as God has directed them to do if they are willing to work for it. And we really do not wish to go to war with people. But, by God, we will have the strongest military around. And that’s not a bad thing to have. It encourages and champions our friends that are weak and it chills the ambitions of the evil.”

“The real metaphor for the terrorist war on civilization is not wide-bodied aircraft crashing into the twin towers. It is mortars firing from the courtyard of the Imam Ali Shrine by men who don’t even sandbag their positions, secure in the knowledge that they can slay men too decent to fire back.”

“If you don’t see an American flag behind the links, then you are using an Al-Qaeda Browser!”

“It might be possible to persuade Microsoft tools to produce valid HTML, but judging by what mostly comes out of them, they must think of HTML as a hot dog factory, where nobody in their right mind would ever look inside.”

“In a world that has as many tensions as our world has today ... to see the athletes come into the stadium, there is that moment of just sheer hope ... And you say maybe watching them assemble there all as one group, maybe the whole world could work.”

“On Friday, I was given a talking-to by a right-of-center friend ... about Why I Should Care About the Swift Boaters, and last night a left-of-the-dial pal wanted to get me excited about Bush’s National Guard service ... and in both cases my reaction is the same: Is this what you’re basing your vote on this November? Really? Whatever happened to the New Seriousness after Sept. 11? And how many people who are feverishly talking up all this nonsense have NOT already long made up their minds on who they’re going to vote for?”

“We can still be optimistic about Iraq — thanks to the incredible job done by our military — but it’s striking how the Bush administration’s dithering, make-it-up-as-you-go-along approach to the occupation in Iraq resembles the previous administration’s amateur-hour performance in Somalia. Our troops end up paying the bills. No matter which party is booking the Lincoln bedroom. Doesn’t anyone take strategy seriously?”

“The UN imposes all sorts of penalties on all those who contradict its religion. It issues documents and statements that openly contradict Islamic belief, such as the International Declaration for Human Rights, considering all religions are equal, and considering that the destruction of the [Bamiyan Buddha] statues constitutes a crime.”

“Al-Qa’ida had sought right from the start to foster confrontation between the United States and the Islamic World. I recall Shaykh Usama Bin Ladin telling us: We as an organization cannot continue with the qualitative operations. So we have to draw the United States into a confrontation with all the Islamic peoples.”

“Two recent studies ... state that the American public is not psychologically prepared for the next attack. Part of this responsibility belongs to the press, part to government leaders and part to the American public. This fact should surprise no one. We are in new territory. Leaders do not want to frighten the public, particularly in an election year when it could make the incumbents look incompetent, and the population would rather not think the unthinkable.”

“America could use a deep breath. When this is over, someone will have to govern a closely divided country. Bush and Kerry are rivals. They are the champions of very different visions for how the U.S. should proceed at home and abroad. But they are not enemies. As the arrests last week in Pakistan and London show, the country has real enemies. America shouldn’t forget the difference.”

“This is a message for all the children of America. We grownups are under a lot of stress right now because of the coming presidential election, and a lot of us will be getting mad, saying things that aren’t true, and calling each other bad names. So it would really help us a lot if you young folks could be on your best behavior for the next couple of months.”

“I think we should focus a lot of time on the wife race, because, as you remember, we nearly lost World War II when Eleanor Roosevelt told the reporter from The Hartford Times Courant to sit on it. So, these are issues that we really should be talking about. And Teresa Heinz Kerry, for what it’s worth, yesterday I saw kill a hobo with her bare hands.”

“Unless the new man has control over the whole intelligence budget of government, you simply have added a new layer of bureaucracy and set it up to fail. Every past proposal ... has foundered on the refusal of the Pentagon to give up an inch of control of its own intelligence spending.”

“The time is now to resolve that the basis of a firm and principled foreign policy is one that takes the world as it is and seeks to change it by leadership and example; not by harangue, harassment or wishful thinking. The time is now to say that while we shall seek new friendships and expand and improve others, we shall not do so by breaking our word or casting aside old friends and allies.”

“There is something about George Bush’s combination of ignorance, piety and swagger that triggers a condition in progressives I’ve come to think of as Bush Blindness. When it strikes, it causes us to lose sight of everything we know about politics, economics and history and to focus exclusively on the admittedly odd personalities of the people in the White House.”

“…Don’t assume that we’re all gung-ho for Bush and the Republicans, and please don’t use us to lie to the citizenry. Some of us don’t like Kerry and a lot of us don’t care much for Bush, but most of us don’t care at all because it doesn’t matter who sits in the Oval Office. The only thing that changes are the places we go.”

“If I were advising either Kerry or Bush I’d tell both of them to be quiet and stay away from the cameras. Quit bugging the bejeezus out of everybody. People aren’t voting for in this election, they’re voting against.”

“For an American conservative, better one lost election than the continued empowerment of cynical men who abuse conservatism through an exercise of power unrestrained by principle through the compromise of conservative beliefs.”

“Anyone can seek a ruling from his favorite sheikh in Mecca. In the old days, one sought a fatwa from the sheikh who had the best knowledge. Now it is sought from the one with the best Web site.”

“The real problem of Spain for Al Qaeda is that we are a neighbor of Arab countries — Morocco and Algeria — and we are a model of economy, democracy, and secularism. We support the transformation and Westernization of the Middle East. We defend the transition of Morocco from a monarchy to a constitutional monarchy. We are allies of the enemies of Al Qaeda in the Arab world. This point is not clearly understood by the Spanish people. We are a menace to Al Qaeda just because of who we are.”

“For once, there appears to be the political will among the African nations to do something about a crisis on their own continent. But to make that effective, it needs the UN to flex its muscles. That is something the UN has yet to show it has an ability, leave alone an intention, to do.”

“Bill Clinton might have declared that the Era of Big Government is over, but the warped mentality from generations of confusing governance with courage, campaign contributions with patriotic sacrifice, and electoral victories with revolutionary wars, is alive and unwell.”

“If you don’t read the instruction manual on your new pro camera and ask a stupid basic question in front of the world, you deserve to get ridiculed. Yes, you do. Take it like a man.”

“I knew that I had every right to critique this overtly consumerist and impossible beauty myth. What I didn’t know was how much money it would take to prove it. Federal court is a boxing ring for the rich.”

“I’m more and more convinced that just as e-mail reinvigorated the art of letter writing, blogging will reinvigorate civic discourse”