Chronicle

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

The Foundation

"Amplification is the vice of modern oratory." --Thomas Jefferson

The Demo-gogues

It's "Joe Biden Week" at the White House

The BIG Lie: "Absolutely. But I don't think they realize it.... The job creating portions are really loaded at the second half here.... They have gotten their money's worth [out of the $787 billion stimulus]." --Vice President Joe Biden, when asked if taxpayers "got their bang from the buck from the stimulus."

Which administration? "I am very optimistic about -- about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration." --Joe Biden

"Greatest achievement" equals mistake? "I don't think the [Iraq] war was worth it, in the sense that we paid a horrible price, not only in loss of life, the way the war was mishandled from the outset, but we took our eye off the ball, putting us in a much different and more dangerous position in Afghanistan." --Joe Biden

Breaking news from 2002: "The president of the United States said in the State of the Union, 'We're at war with al-Qa'ida.' He stated this -- and by the way, we're pursuing that war with a vigor like it's never been seen before." --Joe Biden, who is just now tuning in

Biden in 2002: "We have no choice but to eliminate the threat. [Saddam Hussein] is a guy who is an extreme danger to the world."

Nanny state: "I don't know if anybody noticed that, for the first time this year, you saw more people getting health care from government than you did from the private sector; not because of anything we did, but because more and more people are losing their health care from their employers. It's becoming unaffordable." --Barack Obama

He's catching on: "[Obama] said, you know, I'm for clean coal, then he says it in speeches, but he doesn't say it in here, and he doesn't say it in the minds of my own people, and he's beginning to be not believable to me." --Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)

No Meal Left Behind: "There are kids who are obese in this state who are going to school hungry." --Gov. Bill Ritter of Colorado

On the climate change front, check out this montage of video of Democrats blaming the lack of snow on global warming. Where are they now?

Insight

"Virtue is harder to be got than a knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered." --English philosopher and political theorist John Locke (1632-1704)

"Politics is the best show in America. I love animals and I love politicians, and I like to watch both of 'em play, either back home in their native state or after they've been captured and sent to a zoo -- or Washington." --American humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)

Editorial Exegesis

"Those unversed in the arcana of Congressional procedure should familiarize themselves with 'reconciliation.' It's just another word for nothing left to lose -- that is, it's the tactic Democrats seem increasingly likely to use to bypass the ordinary legislative rules and railroad ObamaCare into law with a bare partisan majority of 50 Senators, plus Vice President Joe Biden. Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced ... that Democrats 'have set the stage' for reconciliation. 'It's up to us to make sure the public knows that this is not extraordinary,' she said. 'It would be a reflection on us if we could not convince people that this is not an unusual place to go.' Yet the reconciliation gambit really would be unprecedented for social legislation of this cost and scale. And as a matter of procedure, it would also be unusual, to say the least. As Mrs. Pelosi's senior health adviser, Wendell Primus, explained ... House Democrats would pass a series of 'fixes' to the Senate bill. The Senate would then pass the House reconciliation bill, sending amendments to President Obama to a bill that -- strictly speaking -- didn't exist, because it hadn't yet emerged from the House. The House would then retroactively pass the Senate bill as is. Democrats say this will all be kosher as long as Mr. Obama signs the Senate bill before he signs the reconciliation bill. 'There's a certain skill, there's a trick,' Mr. Primus conceded, 'but I think we'll get it done.' So even as Democrats themselves acknowledge that one reason the public hates ObamaCare so much is the corrupt tactics they have used to advance it through Congress, they still plan to try to land this Pelosian triple-handspring-quadruple pole vault to passage." --The Wall Street Journal

Upright

"Obamacare flunks the first test of any potential federal law: It is not constitutional." --National Review's Deroy Murdock

"It's not a good idea for Republicans to accept President Barack Obama's invitation to a 'bipartisan' health care summit, because it would not advance acceptable health care reform. The only thing it likely would advance would be Obama's propaganda message -- and, thus, his socialist agenda." --columnist David Limbaugh

"It isn't to evil dictators with a lust for power that Americans have been slowly surrendering their autonomy. It is to well-intentioned authorities who believe sincerely that our freedoms must be circumscribed for our own good. ... First Lady Michelle Obama announced what The New York Times called 'a sweeping initiative ... aimed at revamping the way American children eat and play -- reshaping school lunches, playgrounds, and even medical checkups -- with the goal of eliminating childhood obesity.' Nothing in the Constitution authorizes the federal government to take charge of 'revamping the way American children eat and play.' It is only our passivity that makes such an encroachment possible. This used to be the land of the free. Is it still?" --columnist Jeff Jacoby

"Only two things are infinite -- the expanding universe and Democrats' hostility to the District of Columbia's school choice program. Killing this small program, which currently benefits 1,300 mostly poor and minority children, is odious and indicative. It is a small piece of something large -- the Democrats' dependency agenda, which aims to multiply the ways Americans are dependent on government. ... The dependency agenda is progressive education for children of all ages, meaning all ages treated as children." --columnist George Will

"In the Obama world view, KSM did not perpetrate an act of war but simply pulled off the equivalent of a liquor-store holdup with a somewhat higher body count: it's not a war, it's a law enforcement matter." --columnist Mark Steyn

Dezinformatsia

Whose money is it? "[T]he Bush tax cuts are the single largest part of the black hole that is the federal budget deficit." --Newsweak editor Fareed Zakaria

Obama's national security theater: "Let us talk about Dick Cheney and the point that he seems to be trying to make ... is that ... the Obama administration, is not taking terrorism seriously enough. Is this theater or is there a real point to be made?" --CBS's Harry Smith

Now they ask? "[D]on't you think when the former vice president says America is weaker than it has been that [he is] giving aid and comfort to the enemy, that [he is] encouraging another attack?" --Fox's Geraldo Rivera

Good riddance: "'End of an era. The last Kennedy in Congress calling it quits.' ... It was 1946 when [Patrick's] uncle John Fitzgerald Kennedy was elected to the House. Then, his uncle, Senator Robert Kennedy, and then his father, Ted. There has always been a Kennedy in Washington." --ABC's Diane Sawyer

Alpha Jackass: "The whole of the anger-at-government movement is predicated on this: Times are tough, the future is confusing, the threat from those who would dismantle our way of life is real, as if we weren't to some extent doing it for them now. And the president's black. But you can't come out and say that's why you're scared. ... And so this is where the euphemisms come in. But taxes haven't gone up, the budget deficit is from the last administration's adventurous war, grandma is much more likely to be death-paneled by your insurance company, and a socialist president would be the one who tried to buy as many voters as possible with stupid tax cuts." --MSNBC's Keith Olbermann

The media have done their job: "While the president is showing signs of vulnerability on his handling of the economy -- a majority say he has yet to offer a clear plan for creating jobs -- Americans blame former President George W. Bush, Wall Street and Congress much more than they do Mr. Obama for the nation's economic problems and the budget deficit, the poll found. They credit Mr. Obama more than Republicans with making an effort at bipartisanship, and they back the White House's policies on a variety of disputed issues, from allowing gays to serve openly in the military to repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy." --New York Times' political reporter Adam Nagourney

Newspulper Headlines:

'Think, Mr. President -- Where Were You When You Last Had It?': "Obama Loses the Country" --Commentary Web site

Uh, the Earthquake?: "Haiti Gives Death Toll of 270,000; No Explanation" --Associated Press

Step 1: Don't Lie: "Scientists Seek Better Way to Do Climate Report" --Associated Press

We Blame Global Warming: "To Succeed, Florida Must Be Cool Again, Economic Leaders Say" --Miami Herald

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: "Snow Shuts Down Federal Government, Life Goes On" --Associated Press

Bottom Stories of the Day: "Charges of Hypocrisy, Failure in Stimulus Spending" --St. Louis Post-Dispatch Web site

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

Village Idiots

Vigor or ... whatever: "At the end of the day, wherever [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] is tried, in whatever forum, what we have to ensure is that it's done as transparently as possible and with adherence to all the rules. If we do that, I'm not sure the location or even the forum is as important as what the world sees in that proceeding." --Attorney General Eric Holder

What happened to "Dissent is patriotic"? "Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qa'ida. ... Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill. ... [P]olitics should never get in the way of national security. But too many in Washington are now misrepresenting the facts to score political points, instead of coming together to keep us safe." --Assistant to the president and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan

Nothing gets by her: "We see that the government of Iran -- the supreme leader, the president, the parliament -- is being supplanted and that Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship. You know, that is our view." --Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, sharp as a marble

They say the debate is over: "To deny what scientists or scientific evidence is showing, is inappropriate. And as I said earlier, to me ... it's unpatriotic." --Bill Nye the Science Guy on global warming and blizzards

But on the other hand: "I don't believe the vast majority of climate scientists think [the debate is over]. This is not my view." --Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and the central figure in Climategate

"For the longest time, every Republican election has been based on some sentimental bulls--t: the flag, or the flag pin, or the Pledge, or the, 'It's morning in America.' ... Yes, yes, the love of our troops, the ultimate in fake patriotism. Are you kidding? The troops, we pay them like s--t, we f--k them and trick them on deployment, we nickel and dime them on medical care when they get home, not to mention the stupid wars that we send them to. Yeah, we love the troops the way Michael Vick loves dogs." --HBO's Bill Maher

Short Cuts

"How much time, do you suppose, has Eric Holder spent as attorney general of the United States explaining that he meant no harm by all the harm he's done?" --columnist Paul Greenberg

"Our government can't even resolve confusion about George Washington's birthday. How could it possibly improve our health care system?" --columnist Tom Purcell

"The bottom line on Obama: He puts our money where his mouth is." --CNS News editor Terence Jeffrey

"If global warming gets any worse I'm going to have to buy a snowmobile." --political analyst Rich Galen

"The Weather Channel reported snow on the ground in forty-nine states Friday for the first time ever. It's a winter nobody will forget. Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for his book on global warming and now it's up for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction." --comedian Argus Hamilton