The Patriot Post® · Tuesday Short Cuts

Insight: “The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended.” —Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

The BIG Lie: “I’m … confident that the [gun control] recommendations that are being made by our team here are ones that are entirely consistent with the Second Amendment and people’s lawful right to bear arms.” —Barack Obama

Non Compos Mentis: “Barack Obama … decided that after that [after the Sandy Hook massacre] he was going to do everything that he could. He hadn’t been very interested in [gun control] in his first term, but after that, he was going to do everything in his power and if people don’t like it, his attitude is, ‘See you in court.’ And that is — you know, that’s one way for a president to act. The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order, right? The president is as big a man as he can be, as Woodrow Wilson, not very popular now, used to say, so, you can expand the powers of the office if you feel strongly enough about it and that’s what Obama’s doing.” —liberal pundit Jonathan Alter

Braying Jackass: “I’ve always felt the Rebel flag was some American Swastika. And, well, now, all of a sudden, people are talking about it, and now they’re banning it, and now it’s not OK to have it on f— license plates, and coffee cups, and stuff. And people are starting to question about stuff like statues of Bedford Forrest in parks. Well, it’s about damn time, if you ask me.” —film director Quentin Tarantino

Dezinformatsia: “[I]n a well-known paper, economists Angus Deaton and Anne Case found that over the past 15 years, one group — middle-age whites in the United States — constitutes an alarming trend. They are dying in increasing numbers. … The answer might lie in expectations. … The United States is going through a great power shift. Working-class whites don’t think of themselves as an elite group. But, in a sense, they have been, certainly compared with blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and most immigrants. They were central to America’s economy, its society, indeed its very identity. They are not anymore.” —Fareed Zakaria

And last… “Just as the drunk looks for his lost keys under the streetlight because that’s where the light is, Obama focuses his energies where it is easiest.” —Jim Geraghty