2005 | Whoops & Squawks

No, He Wasn’t, And Only Someone Like You Would Believe He Was. . .

"He's like all of us. . ."--Sick Willie, the alley cat, commenting on the life of the late Pope John Paul II. (April 8, 2005)
“Poor sad Richard Cohen, unabletomoveon.org after five years, is a fine emblem for the Democrats: Ask not for whom the chad hangs, it hangs for thee.” --Mark Steyn, nationally syndicated columnist and North American editor for a British publication, The Spectator, writing in the August 1-7 issue of the Washington Times about how Bush’s nomination of John G. Roberts for the Supreme Court triggered an immediate angst-ridden column by Richard Cohen in the Washington Post, in which Cohen spun an elaborate theory of Republican evil dating back to the 2000 election in which the Court played a decisive role and over which lefties have ranted and screeched for the last five years while continuing to lose one election after another. (August 1, 2005)
“. . .the Alligator Man, (James) Carville, doesn’t belong on television, he belongs in a zoo, with people throwing offal at him.”—Michael Savage, host of The Savage Nation radio talk show. (August 4, 2005)

Why? Because The ACLU Would Sue To Prevent Him From Wearing His Chest Protector

“Ted ‘Double Duty’ Radcliffe, baseball great of the Negro leagues, died last week at the age of 103. When catching, he had sewn on his chest protector, “Thou Shalt Not Steal.” Why don’t we have players like Double Duty today?” –Question submitted by a left-tilting correspondent. (August 15, 2005)

And May I Add: The Answer Is Almost Always In The Mirror

“Very few really seek knowledge in this world. . .(F)ew really ask. On the contrary, they try to wring from the unknown the answers they have already shaped in their own minds—justification, explanations, forms of consolation without which they can’t go on. To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner.”—Marius, the vampire in Ann Rice’s novel, The Vampire Lestat. (August 24, 2005)

Why he’s beyond that. He’s the perdotius quotient of the qualificatilus. He’s the lower intestine.”—Casey Stengel, then manager of the New York Mets, when asked if one of his players, Don (The Gerbil) Zimmer, who was about to retire, was the heart of the team. (August 25, 2005)

New Orleans offered liberals their very own 9/11. It provided enemies they could understand—wind and water; victims they could understand—poor blacks; and solutions they could understand—bigger government and more money.” –National Review, September 26, 2005, edition.

The moral function of war is to recall humans to the reality at the core of existence: . . .violence is part of our nature and is responsible for the fact that human history is a chronicle of tragedies.”—William Pfaff, author of The Bullet’s Song: Romantic Violence and Utopia. Pfaff was quoted by Paul Hollander, who reviewed the book in the March 28, 2005, issue of National Review.

“What the American people have seen is the incredible disparity in which those people who had cars and money got out. . .and those who were impoverished died.” –Attributed to The Democratic Senator from Chappaquiddick, Edward Kennedy, Jr., following Hurricane Katrina.

To describe (Michael Moore’s 2004 film, Fahrenheit 9/11) as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. . .Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in serious thought.” (Michael Moore ) has become “one of the sagging blimps of our sorry, mediocre, celeb-rotten culture.”—Christopher Hitchens, from his new book, Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays. (October, 2005)

Why Does He Let Them Off So Easily?

“They plan to finish their careers as they started them—in defeatism, betrayal, and national dishonor. Oh, that America might see the last of these fish-eyed sacks of loathsome bile and infamy; unwholesome in their birth; repugnant and stench-forming in their decline.”—Tony Blankley, author and editorial page editor of The Washington Times, commenting in the paper’s November 21, 2005, edition on what he labeled the “Watergate babies,” the group of anti-war Democrats who came to Congress in the 1974 election, led the movement to get the U.S. out of Vietnam, and are now in the forefront of the effort to get the U.S. to leave Iraq.

A Glance At Dennis Kucinich Seals The Deal, Too

“Those who promote the theory of intelligent design should take a close look at the sad state of the earth.”—Henry Manger, of Midlothian, Virginia, in a letter to the editor of Time magazine’s September 5, 2005 issue.

“Great coach, honest man, jackass”—Five words chosen by retiring Chicago Tribune sportswriter Bill Jauss to describe Army, Indiana, and Texas Tech basketball coach Bob Knight. Jauss listed Knight and former DePaul coach Ray Meyer as the two greatest coaches he ever encountered. (December 30, 2005)

Nailing It

"Clear Channel does not offer what people want, it makes them want what it has to sell, which is distraction. It broadcasts, not to arouse the public, but to keep them preoccupied."--Helen Kaszeta, of North Haven, Connecticut, in a letter to the editor in the March, 2004, issue of Harper's magazine.

"Better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self."--Cyril Connolly

"The natural progress of things is for the government to gain ground and for liberty to yield."--Thomas Jefferson

"Some mornings it just doesn't seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps."--Emo Philips

"We are holding our own."--Ernest M. McSorley, Captain of the S. S. Edmund Fitzgerald, at approximately 7:10 p.m. on November 10, 1975, in his last recorded transmission before the ship and its crew of 29 sank five minutes later in a Lake Superior storm.

"The Republicans should back off and let men marry men, women marry women, and totally legalize abortion. In three generations there will be no Democrats."--Anonymous 82-year-old woman resident of Peachtree City, Georgia. (March 14, 2005)

Five Bucks Says Mary Jo Would Have Preferred A Life Jacket

"If she had lived, Mary Jo Kopechne would be 62 years old. Through his tireless work as a legislator, Edward Kennedy would have brought comfort to her in her old age." --Charles Pierce, writing in Boston Globe Magazine in 2003, nominated as one of 2003's "Ugliest Media Quotes" by Brent Bozell III, in FrontPageMagazine.com. (January 17, 2004)

What Is The Difference Between Helen Thomas And Bella Abzug?

"This is the worst president ever. This is the worst president in all of American history." --Helen Thomas, member of the press corps covering the White House, 2003
"Nobody I know voted for Nixon." --Pauline Kael, 1972, writing in the New York Times of her bafflement at Richard Nixon's landslide election win over George McGovern, a Democrat.