Old Fogey's Quotes for Thursday

"No matter what amnesty may be passed or how high we build the walls, we will always be fighting this dirty little war of attrition against the overflow. As with locking up drug addicts or despising the 'reserve army of the unemployed,' we need to keep capitalism humming; it seems to be an inevitable cruelty. "
John H. Richardson in WaPo regarding the immigration debate
A Shuffle That Breaks the Soul

"We have to understand that the way we treat Iraqis has a direct effect on the number of insurgents that we are fighting.... For every one that I kill, I create almost 10 more."
Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who has been training U.S. troops to be more culturally sensitive and to use less force.
Los Angeles Times

"First, our intelligence activities strictly target al-Qaeda and their known affiliates. . . .We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans."
Pres. George Bush
Bush transcript

"The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth."
Leslie Cauley, USA TODAY
NSA has U.S. call database

"Are you telling me that tens of millions of Americans are involved with Al Qaeda?"
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont)
Bush Says U.S. Spying Is Not Widespread

"Having prosecuted public corruption cases, you come to realize first of all that public corruption tears the fabric of a democratic society. You lose faith in public officials, it leads to cynicism, it leads to distrust in government."
Robert S. Mueller, Director of the FBI
F.B.I.'s Focus on Public Corruption Includes 2,000 Investigations

"There is a nice tax cut waiting for you - that is, if people refer to you as Dr. or 'my lawyer'. . ."
Robert Sherer in The Christian Science Monitor
Who will gain fromthe new tax-cut bill