Quote For The Week: Conventional Wisdom

It's been a while since I've done these but it's high time I brought it back.

From the famed Axis of Fedora, Da Tech Guy:

Conventional Wisdom is what everybody knows is true, right up to the moment when it is not.

Quote Of The Week

I can only surmise. I think most people on the left live in a world where merit is irrelevant. Theirs is a world in which connections, networking, kissing ass and obedient sameness are rewarded. I am the antithesis of all that. I am a legitimate, achieved and accomplished Number One and I’ve made it on my own and without them and without having followed their proscriptions. I think they are also jealous that I just sold my NY condo for a 125 percent profit while their homes are worthlessly underwater.

Funny thing….a number of my friends sent me the Daily Caller piece and the most shocking thing to them in the story was the advocacy of having government shut down Fox News. That the left wants me dead was not a big deal to them because it was nothing new to them. I think that’s hilarious. And about that: how about the LAW professor who thinks the FCC can pull Fox’s license? Fox does not have a license. The FCC does not grant Fox its right to exist. And this guy teaches law.

Quote Of The Week: Thinking Outside Of The Box Edition

It is clear, too, in the course of the two hours I spend with Greene that he has some pretty wacky ideas that, were he to win in November, would put him among the more unpredictable members of the senate. At one point, he lurches off on his big idea for how to create jobs in South Carolina.

"Another thing we can do for jobs is make toys of me, especially for the holidays. Little dolls. Me. Like maybe little action dolls. Me in an army uniform, air force uniform, and me in my suit. They can make toys of me and my vehicle, especially for the holidays and Christmas for the kids. That's something that would create jobs. So you see I think out of the box like that. It's not something a typical person would bring up. That's something that could happen, that makes sense. It's not a joke."

Quote For The Week: Is It Real Or Parody Edition

"Perhaps the President has not quite turned out to be the Reagan reincarnation we all expected, and in some ways I am beginning to believe this Obama fellow is unequal to the task. As the intellectual conscience of the conservative movement, and whatever our previous enthusiasm for the chap, we ought have the courage to point out those rare instances where his performance has been found wanting. Such as foreign and domestic policy. The important thing is that we not end up implicated in his shortcomings."

Quote For The Week: Broken Promises Edition

If catastrophe comes, the American people must be able to call on a competent government. When I am President, the days of dysfunction and cronyism in Washington will be over. The director of FEMA will report to me. He or she will have the highest qualifications in emergency management. And I won't just tell you that I'll insulate that office from politics - I'll guarantee it, by giving my FEMA director a fixed term like the director of the Federal Reserve. I don't want FEMA to be thinking for one minute about the politics of a crisis. I want FEMA to do its job, which is protecting the American people - not protecting a President's politics.

...That is why the second thing we need to do is to make sure that reconstruction is making a real difference in peoples' lives.
[. . .]
Instead of giving no-bid contracts to companies headed by the President's former campaign manager, we will make sure that rebuilding benefits the local economy. I have worked across the aisle in the Senate to crack down on no-bid contracts, and to make sure that emergency contracting is only done immediately after an emergency. When I am President, if there is a job that can be done by a New Orleans resident, the contract will go to a resident of New Orleans. And we'll provide tax incentives to businesses that choose to set up shop in the hardest hit areas.
[. . .]
I promise you that when I'm in the White House I will commit myself every day to keeping up Washington's end of this trust. This will be a priority of my presidency. And I will make it clear to members of my Administration that their responsibilities don't end in places like the 9th ward - they begin there.

Quote For The Week

Whether Barack Obama is simply incompetent as president or has some hidden agenda to undermine this country, at home and abroad, he has nearly everything he needs to ruin America, including a fool for a vice president.

Quote Of The Week: Working His Way Toward Irrelevance Edition

As voters considered his fate throughout Pennsylvania, Sen. Arlen Specter warned on Tuesday that without him Democrats may not be able to fend off a tea party “takeover.”

“If we’re not careful, if you don’t field the strongest candidate — frankly, like Arlen Specter — they’re going to take over,” Specter said of the tea parties. “Beating the tea party gang is more important than who does the beating.”

They want to go back to the gold standard,” he added.“It’d be an 18th-century America.”

Quote For The Day: Vindication Edition

The funny thing about [Sarah] Palin’s newfound wealth, is that it never could have been possible had her enemies not tried to bankrupt her with frivolous ethics complaints. Palin’s main reason for stepping down as governor early was because those frivolous ethics complaints were costing Alaska millions and personally bankrupting her. Had these complaints never happened, Palin would have had to wait until her term was over before she could have published and promoted Going Rogue. She certainly would not have been able to collect a dime from Fox News or her speaking fees.

Quote For The Week: Good Riddance Edition

John Paul Stevens wrote the Supreme Court opinion that expanded the Constitution's authorization of seizing private property for "public use" to seizing private property for a "public purpose." And who would define what a "public purpose" is? Basically, those who were doing the seizing. As Justice Stevens put it, the government authorities' assessment of a proper "public purpose" was entitled to "great respect" by the courts.

Let's go back to square one. Just who was this provision of the Constitution supposed to restrict? Answer: government officials. And to whom would Justice Stevens defer: government officials. Why would those who wrote the Constitution waste good ink putting that protection in there, if not to protect citizens from the very government officials to whom Justice Stevens deferred?

John Paul Stevens is a classic example of what has been wrong with too many Republicans' appointments to the Supreme Court. The biggest argument in favor of nominating him was that he could be confirmed by the Senate without a fight.

Democratic presidents appoint judges who will push their political agenda from the federal bench, even if that requires stretching and twisting the Constitution to reach their goals.

Republicans too often appoint judges whose confirmation will not require a big fight with the Democrats. You can always avoid a fight by surrendering, and a whole wing of the Republican party has long ago mastered the art of preemptive surrender.

Quote For The Week: Bottom Line For ObamaCare

So let's ask the question the left never asks: how is it possible for an insurance company to pay for these giant medical bills? What makes it possible is a whole set of statistical calculations. For every person who needs open-heart surgery or chemotherapy, there have to be a certain number of other people who are paying their premiums but haven't gotten seriously ill. If the insurance company has gotten its calculations right, the expenses for any one person's catastrophic care are balanced out by the premiums other people pay "just in case."

You can see how Obama's demands undermine this whole system. To ask insurance companies to cover a patient after the tumor is diagnosed is to ask them to take on a known expense. Combine that with another Obama demand: that insurance companies can't charge higher rates for those who are at higher risk of getting sick. So if insurance companies have to take on a known expense and can't charge a higher rate for it, how are they going to pay for it? By raising everyone else's rates, redistributing their wealth to the new freeloaders.

This isn't insurance, it's welfare. And that's the whole point.

Quote For The Week: Questions For The Partisan Edition

It truly amazes me that the left-wing of the Democratic Party, which foams at the mouth at the thought that the NSA might intercept a phone call from someone in the U.S. to a known al-Qaeda operative in Pakistan, is so willing to hand over to the government the power to control the most personal aspect of our lives.

What if Barack Obama were not President, and Democrats did not control Congress. Would liberals be so willing to give the federal government this sweeping power?

The answer to that question is so plainly obvious that it should give pause even to those so infected with Obamamania that they have lost the ability to reason.

Liberals shouldn't wish too hard for the mandate, because they just may get it. Freedom, once relinquished, is very hard to get back.

Quote For The Week: Saying What Needs To Be Said Edition

We need to understand we are all in this together. And you know, all of you know in your heart, what I am saying is true. You all know that these raises that are being given to public employees of all stripes, we cannot afford. You all know the state cannot continue to spend money it does not have. And you all know that the appetite for tax increases among our constituents has come to an end.

And so the path to reform and success is clear. We know what it is. We just have to have the courage to go there. What we are doing is showing people that government can work again for them, not for us. Government has worked for the political class for much too long.

There’s no time left. We have no room left to borrow. We have no room left to tax. So we merely have room left now, to do this. We are all reaching the edge of a cliff. And it reminds me a bit of that part of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid where the had a seminal decision to make. So what did they do? They held hands and they jumped off the cliff.

We have to hold hands at every level of government, state county, municipal, school board. We have to hold hands and jump off the cliff.

Quote For The Week: "That's Gotta Sting" Edition.

Indeed, Senator McCain is already attacking J.D. by name in advertisements because he knows he is the type of exciting, principled conservative that excites people like you and me. And he knows that after years of running over Republican principles his entire career no election year conversion to our way of thinking will save his campaign from voters that want conservatives to be a part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

I just wish Senator McCain had run as hard against Barack Obama as he is against a conservative like J.D. That could have prevented the harmful, liberal agenda we are all now suffering through.

You have been a great supporter of mine. Now I am hoping you will become a great supporter of J.D.’s. I have known him for many years. I trust him.

And I know he is exactly what we need in Washington, D.C. right now.

Quote For The Week

UPDATED: Linked by Doug at The Gator.

He scolded the justices of the Supreme Court in front of their faces and led the entire Democratic side of the aisle into cheering his taunts. The justices sat there stone-faced (save Justice Alito, whose reaction probably betrayed what the rest were thinking).

He scolded Republicans for obstruction and declared “we can’t wage a perpetual campaign” — even as he continued, in his speech, his perpetual campaign against President Bush. The fact is, by this time in their presidencies, both of his predecessors had reached across the aisle to seek opposition support for a major initiative (Clinton on NAFTA, Bush on No Child Left Behind). Obama has not one single significant bipartisan initiative to speak of. He has tried to ram through his agenda along strict party-line votes. But the Republicans are obstructionist.
[. . .]
His one moment of “humility” came when he acknowledged his biggest mistake of the past year: his failure to adequately explain his policies to all of us. This was a State of the Union for the slow learners. His message to all of us was: “Let me speak slowly for you.”

Quote For The Week: Anniversary Edition

Happy one-year anniversary, Stupid! We got you a Senator.

Quote For The Week: Anarchy And The Attorney General Edition

"I know there were people following, including two from the Brown campaign who have been very aggressive in their stalking,” Coakley told reporters during an appearance at Kit Clark Senior Services in Dorchester. “I’m not sure what happened. I know something occurred, but I’m not privy to the facts. I’m sure it will come out, but I’m not aware of that.”

Quote Of The Week: End Of The Year Edition

The lesson I have to teach is this: Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson. Let society’s legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know-hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed. I, Pencil, seemingly simple though I am, offer the miracle of my creation as testimony that this is a practical faith, as practical as the sun, the rain, a cedar tree, the good earth.

Quote Of The Week: Fascist Edition

Unless something is done to address the issue, Rushkoff said, professional journalism could collapse leaving society to rely on an army of online amateurs.

"There is a tremendous value to a literate, self-expressive amateur society that can't be overemphasised. At the same time, when corporations and governments are employing highly-professional communications managers, it requires that people have professional journalists who can deconstruct all this public relations.

"People will not understand that until they are living in something akin to fascism."

Quote For The Week: Indictment Of The Media Edition

But after reading the Washington Post's review of "Going Rogue" the other day and the reviewer's candid confession that she hadn't really had time to finish the book that she was writing so authoritatively about, we realized this is the latest thing in U.S. society and journalism.

Why bother reading any of it? Just talk about it.

Millions of Americans won't read "Going Rogue" and will think it's pretty good because they like SP. And millions more, like the Washington writer, are just as certain that it's conservative pop garbage, same as her. And they know this without cracking the thing open or turning page after page to the very end.

You don't even have to buy the book to know any of this.

So, a reviewer can just write what he/she thinks the book is or heard it is or wants it to be. And if no one else reads what they're writing about or reads anything they disagree with, who can challenge anybody on anything?

It's perfect for a hurried society, like Washington every day or the modern quadrennial presidential campaigns. People reciting at each other things they've heard from others.

This way nobody has to learn anything new or adjust what they're already certain of. Dumb is the new American smart.

Quote Of The Week: Concerned Edition

After news broke out of the shooting at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas, the nation watched in horror as the toll of dead and injured climbed. The White House was notified immediately and by late afternoon, word went out that the president would speak about the incident prior to a previously scheduled appearance. At about 5 p.m., cable stations went to the president. The situation called for not only his trademark eloquence, but also grace and perspective.

But instead of a somber chief executive offering reassuring words and expressions of sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly disconnected and inappropriately light president making introductory remarks. At the event, a Tribal Nations Conference hosted by the Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian affairs, the president thanked various staffers and offered a "shout-out" to "Dr. Joe Medicine Crow -- that Congressional Medal of Honor winner." Three minutes in, the president spoke about the shooting, in measured and appropriate terms. Who is advising him?

Anyone at home aware of the major news story of the previous hours had to have been stunned. An incident like this requires a scrapping of the early light banter.