Old Fogey's Favorite Quotes from Today's News
Some funny, some sad, and some hopeful

The first deals with Bush’s nomination of Bernanke to replace Alan Greenspan as Federal Reserve Chairman:

" 'We probably got Monday's little rally [in the stock market] because everyone's happy it wasn't Bush's accountant,' joked David Wyss, chief economist at Standard and Poor's in New York."

The second is by Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff:

"The administration's performance during its first four years would have been even worse without Powell's damage control. At least once a week, it seemed, Powell trooped over to the Oval Office and cleaned all the dog poop off the carpet."

The third sounds like a defense of any indictments to be handed down by Fitzgerald, but NO, this statement related to the impeachment of Clinton, who after years of having everything he did under Ken Starr’s mighty expensive microscope, could only be charged for lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky:

" 'The principle of the rule of law--equality under the law and a clear standard for perjury and obstruction of justice--was the overriding issue in this impeachment,' said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who also voted 'guilty' on both counts."

Number four relates to Judy Miller’s relations with "senior administration officials":

" 'I think the paper has taken a terrible hit,' said David Halberstam, one of the Times' most respected alums, and a former Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. 'I think it is shocking that this young woman who has been a known identified land mine for a long time seems to have guaranteed loyalty to the office of the Vice President of the United States more than to The New York Times."

The fifth is a response to Republican proposals to cut programs that help poor children get the tools to be part of the American Dream, i.e. access to health care, sufficient food to develop normally, the possibility to get a college education and training adequate to compete in today’s economy:

"I can't believe that some people in Washington think that, after a Category 5 hurricane, the solution is to unleash a Category 5 hurricane on working people," said Michele Baker, a custodian for the Orleans Parish School District, who weathered Katrina in her car, spent the aftermath in the Louisiana Superdome and now has no job.

Number six provides some hope, if Miers is confirmed as a justice to the Supreme Court; it is a quote from a speech by her in the 1990s:

"Allowing conditions to exist so long and get so bad that resort to the courts is the only answer has not served our state well," she said."Politicians who would cry 'The courts made me do it' or 'I did not do that -- the courts did' should not be tolerated."

I close with an encouraging quote, indicating that major corporations are beginning to support some kind of national health care system. It is a statement made by Gary Snodgrass, VP for Exelon Corporation, concerning soaring health care costs and the people left behind:

"With us, there is this notion that we look beyond our company, we look at society, and it is a moral issue; we think it is a travesty given the vast resources of our country and our society."