The Patriot Post® · Friday Short Cuts

Insight: “We are students of words; we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Upright: “I really don’t know if fiery debates like Thursday evening’s will wind up building interest and excitement in the Republican field, or wearing and tearing it down. I don’t know if we’ll look back on this as the beginning of a making or a breaking. Maybe the former. Anyway, it was alive. I wonder if Hillary Clinton is wondering how she can look alive.” —Peggy Noonan

Alpha Jackass: “Essentially, when you watch [the GOP] debate, just imagine if you are one of the wealthiest people in this country and extremely greedy and selfish, and you’re going to have 10 candidates more or less talking about your needs and not the needs of the working people.” —Bernie Sanders

Braying Jenny: “I’m tired of women being shamed and blamed and dismissed… When you attack Planned Parenthood, you attack women’s health. And when you attack women’s health, you attack America’s health.” —Hillary Clinton

A hit from the Left: “I think [Jon] Stewart’s show demonstrated the decline and vacuity of contemporary comedy. I cannot stand that smug, snarky, superior tone. I hated the fact that young people were getting their news through that filter of sophomoric snark. … Stewart is certainly a highly successful TV personality, but I think he has debased political discourse.” —liberal academic dissident and feminist social critic Camille Paglia

Late-night humor: “A new study came out and it finds that Michelle Obama’s ‘Let’s Move’ program may have caused people to actually gain weight. Apparently many mistook the slogan to mean, ‘Let’s move next door to a Cinnabon.’” —Conan O'Brien