Old Fogey's Quotes for Sunday

"As long as Democrats controlled Congress or the White House, Republicans could tell conservatives they deserved support because of what they would do, someday. Now we know what they do when they have control. Their agenda comes from Big Business, not from grass-roots conservatives."
Richard A. Viguerie, author of "Conservatives Betrayed: How Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause."
Bush's Base Betrayal

"George W. Bush has faithfully carried out the great conservative project. He has stripped away the restraints on American power, in an effort to show the world that we are not weak. And in the process, he has made American power illegitimate, which has made us weak."
Peter Beinart, author of "The Good Fight: Why Liberals -- and Only Liberals -- Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again." quoted in Will's WaPo editorial
Lessons For Liberals

"Fiscal responsibility is not an option in this House of Representatives."
House Speaker Dennis Hastert's press release last week as quoted in WaPo
Edwards, Out Courting Labor, Banks Goodwill but Little Cash

"The American people have a very low opinion of you, of me, of the Congress, of the president. Read the latest polls," Hagel thundered. "Why are the American people upset with us? Because we are not doing our job. We talk about, 'Let's run to the base. Let's run to the political lowest common denominator.' That is not governing. That is cheap, transparent politics."
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), in debate over immigration reform
Republicans Divided on How to Reshape Law

"Businesses large and small, careerists with Latin nannies, and those who want wages low, the unions suppressed and their gardens well tended have made common cause with their political opposites. . . .
To assert as some have that illegal immigrants do not depress wages because they do the jobs Americans refuse is the kind of nonsense economists speak when they strain to be counterintuitive. It is similar to saying that cheap imports do not hold down prices. If employers paid higher than substandard wages, Americans (who famously do almost anything for money, including eating worms, shooting themselves from cannons and listening to Barbra Streisand sing) would take these jobs."
Mark Helprin, a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute
The Unvarnished Immigration Debate

"Democrats tend to tire faster of people than Republicans do."
Frank Luntz, a Republican communications consultant who has conducted focus groups on presidential candidates of both parties.
Plea of the Democratic Pariah: Forgive My Defeat

"Raise more money, disqualify the opponent early, and don't let them off the mat."
Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster, discussing his party's strategy for 2006 elections
In House Races, More G.O.P. Seats Look Vulnerable

"If the experience of their exhausted, insomniac, dispirited elders makes them decide they'd prefer not to go straight from the classroom to the cubicle to the coffin, it doesn't mean they're lazy. It means they're sane."
Anna Quindlen, in Newsweek online about the younger generation
A Cubicle Is Not a Home