Old Fogey's Quotes for Monday/Tuesday

"If left unchecked, the president's practice does grave harm to the separation of powers doctrine, and the system of checks and balances that have sustained our democracy for more than two centuries."
ABA's president, Michael Greco, regarding the use of signing statements by which Bush reserves a right to revise, interpret or disregard measures on national security and constitutional grounds.
Lawyers: Bush is violating Constitution

"We must keep vital in ourselves a sense of scandal so overwhelming that it affects every significant aspect of our position in history and society. We have, as Emily Dickinson would have said, to keep the soul terribly surprised."
George Steiner, in series of lectures about the state of culture 35 years ago
Object Lessons: Photos Open Our Eyes to War

"We became so powerful in our ivory towers, in our gated communities. We forgot that there are poor people."
Anonymous GOP Senate candidate in Dana Milbank's WaPo column
'R' as a 'Scarlet Letter'

" . . . most Republican senators in tight races want to get your mind off that irrelevant stuff -- you know, President Bush, Iraq, the deficit, oil prices -- and on to those nice little things they've gotten that terrible, horrible, no good, very bad big government to do for you."
E. J. Dionne Jr, in WaPO editorial on pork barrel politics
Stressing Pork, Not the Party

"Just my luck. I go away on vacation and it happens to be the week when George W. Bush's strategic view of the current world situation is revealed: Russia big. China big, too. World leaders boring. Lady world leaders need neck rub. Terrorism bad. Elections good (when the right people get elected). Israel good. Time to go home yet?"
Eugene Robinson, in WAPo editorial
It's Disproportionate. . .

"A president could easily contrive a constitutional excuse to decline enforcement of any law he deplored, and transform his qualified veto into a monarch-like absolute veto."
Page 23 of an American Bar Association task force recommendations on presidential signing statements, which Bush has used more often than all previous presidents combined
full report

“If these lawyers are not there to audit the gift and estate tax returns, then a lot of taxes that should be paid will go uncollected, and that impacts every taxpayer who is paying their fair share.”
Colleen M. Kelley, the national union president, regarding the administration plans to cut the jobs of 157 of the agency’s 345 estate tax lawyers, plus 17 support personnel, in less than 70 days
I.R.S. to Cut Tax Auditors

“That was it, case closed. There was nobody else to talk to.”
One military interrogator in Iraq, regarding a slide show justifying harsh interrogation tactics given by JAG lawyers after he and others complained about prisoner abuse they witnessed
Human Rights Watch

"Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday pointed to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah as fresh evidence of the ongoing battle against terrorism that underscores the need to keep President Bush's Republican allies in control of Congress."
Nancy Benac in AP release
Nancy Benac
[Reminds me of the man who murdered his parents and then sought leniency because he was a orphan]