Old Fogey's Quotes for Thursday

"Don't be bamboozled. Don't buy into it. It's great if he commits to signing it, but what is critical is the follow-through. You don't just talk the talk, but you also walk the walk."
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Illinois) , in anticpation of Bush's speech, which expressed support for extending the Voting Rights Act.
Jeff Zeleny

"If this bill would have become law, American taxpayers would, for the first time in our history, be compelled to fund the deliberate destruction of human embryos. And I'm not going to allow it."
President George Bush, announcing his first ever veto, of the stem cell legislation
text

"It's like after Katrina, when the secretary of homeland security was saying all those people weren't really stranded when we were all watching it on TV. We can't look like we won't face reality."
Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.), regarding the Iraq War
GOP Lawmakers Edge Away From Optimism on Iraq

"Since the beginning of May, attacks by Sunni Arab and Shiite Muslims have claimed the lives of more than 6,000 Iraqi civilians, according to a United Nations study and Iraqi police reports"
Borzou Daragahi, LATimes Staff Writer, reporting from Iraq
In Iraq, Civil War All but Declared

"Economist William Niskanen of the Cato Institute, who worked in the Reagan administration, examined the relationship between deficits and federal spending from 1981 to 2005. He found that, contrary to the theory, spending rises when deficits rise. Deficits are what they seem: a way for politicians to escape inconvenient choices."
Robert J. Samuelson, in WaPO editorial
No Shame, No Sense and a $296 Billion Bill

"Bush's move -- denying the requisite security clearances to attorneys from the department's ethics office -- is unprecedented in that office's history. It also comes in stark contrast to the enthusiastic way in which security clearances were dished out to a different group of attorneys: Those charged with finding out who leaked information about the program to the press."
Dan Froomkin, in WaPo, regarding the investigation of White House controversial secret domestic spying programs
Cover-Up Exposed?

"It sends a clear message to every Arab reformer and every Arab politician who's thinking of allying with the United States and going out on a limb in order to push reform. And that message is: Don't count on the United States."
Syrian expert, professor Joshua Landis at Oklahoma University, regarding US "sacrifice" of the Lebanese government, its greatest democratic success so far
Marc Sandalow

"Among those who watch Fox for their news, 59% approve of the job George W. Bush is doing as president and 29% disapprove. But among non-Fox viewers, just 25% approve of the president's performance and 66% disapprove."
Survey and Research Policy Institute poll

"The president has enshrined his immaturity and insularity, turning every environment he inhabits -- no matter how decorous or serious -- into a comfortable frat house."
Maureen Dowd, in her New York Times opinion column
Cover-Up Exposed?

"It does not come from Miss Manners; it comes from the Constitution."
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts), regarding the process of briefing members of Congress as a "part of the constitutional mandate for collaboration"
Barney Frank's Reminder

"International law demands accountability. The scale of the killings in the region, and their predictability, could engage the personal criminal responsibility of those involved, particularly those in a position of command and control."
United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour , regarding wanton violence against civilians in the current Middle East conflict
United Nations warns Hizbullah, Israel of 'war crimes' liability