The Patriot Post® · Thursday Short Cuts

Insight: “What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.” —Hannah Arendt (1906-1975)

Upright: “I think Republicans are focused solely on the people who are hurting right now, who recognize that the [health care] system is collapsing. People in the near future are not going to have any choice in the marketplace. … It’s unfortunate that Democrats have no interest in solving a problem that they created.” —RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel

Demo-gogues: “This is God’s creation. We have a real responsibility to it. To minister to the needs of God’s creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us. … It is very important that our colleagues not only read the [health care] bill, but examine their consciences and look into their hearts, and maybe look into the eyes of these families, and maybe make a decision in favor of what is right.” —Nancy Pelosi

Delusional and dishonest: “President Obama tried to move us forward with health-care coverage by using a conservative model that came from one of the conservative think tanks that had been advanced by a Republican governor in Massachusetts. Now it’s time for the next step. And the next step is single payer.” —Elizabeth Warren

Because socialists don’t lie! “It is a sad state of affairs in America, not only when we have politicians being destroyed, when there are attacks against elected officials, but when you go after your wife — people’s wives. That is pretty pathetic.” —Bernie Sanders on the investigation into his wife’s tenure as president of Burlington College, the wife he says “is about the most honest person I know”

And last… “In an inadvertent hot-mic request in 2012, Obama asked outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to urge Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to give me space’ during Obama’s re-election campaign, so that after his assumed success, Obama could reciprocate with ‘more flexibility’ on Russian issues. In the present highly charged climate, would that be seen as a form of Russian collusion?” —Victor Davis Hanson