February 3, 2010

Chronicle

The Foundation

“The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.” –Alexander Hamilton

Editorial Exegesis

“Last week the Russian air force celebrated the maiden flight of the Sukhoi T-50, Moscow’s version of the American F-22 Raptor stealth fighter. We have shut down the F-22 production line, viewing it as an unaffordable and unnecessary extravagance. We mention this in light of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s statement that President Obama’s proposed freeze on discretionary domestic programs should also cover defense expenditures. Unfortunately, our enemies aren’t freezing their defense budgets. … Defense is not a discretionary budget item. It’s a constitutional imperative and one of the reasons we have a government. The greatest social service a government can perform for its people is to keep them alive and free. ‘Everybody has to make a sacrifice,’ Pelosi [said], shortly before Obama announced his proposed discretionary spending freeze in his State of the Union address. By everybody, she evidently was excluding herself; the speaker’s interest in Air Force jets does not extend beyond the ones that fly her and her family around. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by Judicial Watch show that Pelosi has incurred expenses of $2.1 million for her use of Air Force jets the past two years. Then there’s the matter of the $101,000 tab taxpayers picked up over that period for ‘in-flight services,’ including a selection of top-shelf booze. … Pelosi has used Air Force aircraft to travel back to her district at average cost of $28,210.51 per flight. … We suggest that since everybody has to make a sacrifice, it not come at the expense of the U.S. military. We can’t build any more Raptors, but we can use Air Force jets as sky taxis for politicians who consider themselves too important to fly commercial.” –Investor’s Business Daily

Insight

“A man’s most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to believe.” –Greek playwright Euripides (485-406 B.C.)

“The habit of common and continuous speech is a symptom of mental deficiency. It proceeds from not knowing what is going on in other people’s minds.” –British journalist Walter Bagehot (1826-1877)

Upright

“The bigger the government, the less I do for myself, for my family and for my community. That is why we Americans give more charity and devote more time to volunteering than Europeans do. The European knows: The government, the state, will take care of me, my children, my parents, my neighbors and my community. I don’t have to do anything. The bigger question in many Europeans’ lives is, ‘How much vacation time will I have and where will I spend that vacation?’ That is what happens when the state gets bigger – you become smaller.” –radio talk-show host Dennis Prager

“Many people ask me whether the Democrats are in as much trouble as they were in 1994. The numbers suggest they are in much deeper trouble, at least at this moment.” –political analyst Michael Barone

“When the president directed that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other al Qaeda plotters of Sept. 11 be tried in a civilian court in Manhattan, [our] enemies knew they had the president’s number for once and all. Now, with even stalwarts in his own party denouncing a civilian trial in Manhattan as the nut-ball idea of the year, he’s looking for a smart solution, a way to look tough in retreat. He should take the trial to San Francisco, where the flame that warms the cult burns brightest, and where surely no one would object.” –Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden

“[E]verything the president proposes means more debt, which at the level this guy’s spending means, at some point down the road, either higher taxes or total societal collapse.” –columnist Mark Steyn

“Americans are not victims who need handouts. Americans need the freedom to flourish. And until our president realizes this, he, and America, will lose out.” –National Review editor Kathryn Lopez

“We must present a clear choice: stay the course of progressive liberalism, which moves away from popular consent, the rule of law, and constitutional government, and toward a failed, undemocratic, and illiberal form of statism; or correct course in an effort to restore the conditions of liberty and renew the bedrock principles and constitutional wisdom that are the roots of America’s continuing greatness.” –Heritage Foundation scholar Matthew Spalding

“America’s future is clear: Unless we start cutting spending and take control of entitlement programs, our children will go broke making good on our promises. … The government can never spend its way out of recession. It can only get out of the way, through lower tax rates and less costly regulation, and allow private business to grow again.” –columnist Rich Tucker

Dezinformatsia

Repent for the end is near: “If health care doesn’t pass, because this budget assumes health care will pass, that’s yet another $150 billion that would be tacked on to the deficit.” –NBC’s Chuck Todd regurgitating the BIG LIE that paying out more government dollars on “health care” is going to save money

Hoping for ObamaCare: “The president outlines a number of measures to reduce the deficit, over $1 trillion worth. But … perhaps the most surprising, the budget assumes a savings of $150 billion over the next 10 years from health care reform, legislation that is at the very best – at the most optimistic – on life support on Capitol Hill right now.” –ABC’s Jake Tapper (The best and most optimistic would be for ObamaCare to be in the morgue.)

Blame the GOP: “Republicans should know that their partisanship means they are rejecting medical security that is available in most countries of the world for its citizens. Shame on them!” –White House press corpse reporter Helen Thomas

“Tea-party people are libertarians, and on the state level, they are organizing around the notion of using the 10th Amendment (which affirms state’s rights) to overturn health-care legislation – should it still pass by some miracle. It’s hard to take their rhetoric seriously. Where else could they go in the world to be freer? It reminds me of the slogan shouted at antiwar protesters, ‘America, love it or leave it.’” –Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift (You first.)

Poor guy: “If the president of Toyota has big headaches, well, so too, does the president of the United States, putting together a budget in an economic downturn with more than 15 million Americans out of work.” –CBS’s Katie Couric

Bully pulpit could have a whole new meaning: “[Obama] needs one or two [Republican] votes in the Senate to get anything passed. That’s the political reality. But he needs to, perhaps, bully Republicans into doing that, rather than doing this careful walk around them.” –Newsweek’s Katie Connolly

Newspulper Headlines:

We Blame Global Warming: “Liberals Cool on Obama’s Freeze” –Daily Beast

We Blame George W. Bush: “Houston Fire Blamed on Inflatable Gorilla” –NPR.org

But Obama Said It Was Bush’s Fault!: “Mayan Tomb Find May Help Explain Collapse” –CBC.ca

Namely 100%: “Overweight Elderly Have Similar Mortality to Normal-Weigh Elderly” –MedScape.com

News of the Tautological: “Call for Breast Milk Donations in Haiti Goes Bust” –MSNBC.com

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: “The Enormous Carbon Footprint of Protecting Pandas” –Investor’s Business Daily

Bottom Stories of the Day: “White House Blames Bush for Budget Woes” –Salon.com

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

The Demo-gogues

Belly laugh of the week: “Already, we have made historic strides … to cut wasteful spending.” –Barack Obama announcing his $3.7 trillion budget to Congress Monday

Nanny state: “Until America is back at work, my administration will not rest and this recovery will not be finished.” –Barack Obama, promising to spend your money (and that of your children and grandchildren) like mad until the economy recovers

‘Be patient while I spend your money’: “It’s very important to understand, we won’t be able to bring down this deficit overnight given that the recovery is still taking hold and families across the country still need help.” –Big Spender in Chief Obama

Dead wrong: “We’re not going to save our way out of this recession. We’ve got to spend our way out of this recession, and I think most economists know that.” –Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC)

Admitting deceit: “Let me say this about … the health care debate, because I think it also bears on a whole lot of other issues. If you look at the package that we’ve presented – and there’s some stray cats and dogs that got in there that we were eliminating, we were in the process of eliminating. For example, we said from the start that it was going to be important for us to be consistent in saying to people if you can have your – if you want to keep the health insurance you got, you can keep it, that you’re not going to have anybody getting in between you and your doctor in your decision making. And I think that some of the provisions that got snuck in might have violated that pledge.” –Barack Obama at the GOP retreat in Baltimore

Poo pooing serious charges: “But if you were to listen to debate and, frankly, how some of you went after this bill, you’d think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot. No, I mean, that’s how you guys presented it.” –BO to GOP House members

Misunderstanding: “Maybe over time, people will have a chance to understand what is in the [health care] legislation.” –Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) (Maybe people DO understand what’s in the legislation and that’s why they oppose it.)

Pay any price: “We go through the gate. If the gate’s closed, we’ll go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we’ll pole vault in. If that doesn’t work, we’ll parachute in. But we’re going to get health care reform passed for the American people for their own personal health and economic security and for the important role that it will play in reducing the deficit.” –House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Airborne

You can say that again: “The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries.” –Barack Obama

Village Idiots

Backhanded compliment: “I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina. That education system was a disaster, and it took Hurricane Katrina to wake up the community to say that ‘we have to do better.’” –Education Secretary Arne Duncan

Judge, jury and executioner: “Well, let me tell you what Plan A is for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is going to meet justice and he’s going to meet his maker. … He will be brought to justice, and he’s likely to be executed for the heinous crimes that he committed in killing – in masterminding the killing of – 3,000 Americans. … The Attorney General believes that the best place to do this is in an American courtroom.” –White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on the show trial for KSM

Complaining about help: “The evangelicals are in control and they take everything for themselves. They have the advantage that they control the airport where everything is stuck. They take everything they get to their own people and that’s a shame. … Voodoo as been discriminated against for 200 years. … To ask us to stop would be like asking an American to stop heating hamburgers.” –Max Beauvoir, Haiti’s “supreme master” of voodoo

Short Cuts

“The budget presented by our president today could only have been written by Rosie Scenario.” –University of Maryland professor Peter Morici

“Toyota apologized Saturday for faulty gas pedals on four million vehicles just recalled. When you press the pedal down it stays down and the car accelerates out of control. Whoever designed the gas pedal should be fired and made Treasury Secretary.” –comedian Argus Hamilton

“While fighting to stay awake during his State of the Union speech, it occurred to me that for over a year now, Obama has been speaking and behaving like the leader of an occupying force. Which, the more I thought about it, is exactly who I think he is.” –columnist Burt Prelutsky

“Washington, Obama tells us, is ‘unable or unwilling to solve any of our problems.’ So let’s have more Washington! In our schools, in our hospitals, in our cars, in everything! Which raises the question: Does even Obama listen to Obama’s speeches?” –columnist Mark Steyn

“Even Obama’s speech reminded me of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ – he built a straw man, had a tin ear and spent the whole talk cowardly lyin’.” –comedian Evan Sayet

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