Old Fogey's Quotes for Sunday

"What's playing out here is that being a rubber stamp for George Bush is politically dangerous to life-threatening."
Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, regarding Lieberman's losing campaign
Conn. Race Could Be Democratic Watershed

"Iraq is the number one issue and the message is exceptionally simple: We cannot abide the status quo."
Democratic pollster Peter Hart
Conn. Race Could Be Democratic Watershed

"Those projects -- with notorious names such as Cabrini-Green and Ida B. Wells -- constituted a wall of separation in the city, a barrier that blocked the black ghetto from the Lake Michigan shoreline, where affluent whites lived."
David S. Broder, in WaPo editorial regarding a successful mixed use development to replace the old public housing in Chicago [with federal funding from programs now being cut]
Housing That Means Freedom

"But two of those lawmakers weren't in Congress when the program passed. Another opposed the measure."
Article in WaPo regarding U.S. Chamber of Commerce television ads that extolled several Republican lawmakers for supporting the new Medicare prescription drug program
Wife of Convicted GOP Official Hired by Chafee Campaign

"All these guys are trying to seem like reasonable, moderate guys who are not the scary conservatives who their opponents will make them out to be. But they all have very conservative records and support for the president that will make it difficult for them to duck this."
Steven S. Smith, a political scientist and congressional expert at Washington University in St. Louis, regarding GOP candidates attempts to separate themselves from Bush
GOP Candidates Claim Degrees Of Separation From President

“In Washington, D.C., Congress may have passed the voting rights bill to extend voter participation. But out here at the grass roots, things are headed in the opposite direction.”
Katy Gall, organizing director of Ohio Acorn, an advocacy group that focuses on poor neighborhoods, regarding changes in voter registration rules in Ohio
New Registration Rules Stir Voter Debate in Ohio

“I don’t think he is resentful or angry or anything; I think he is resigned to it.”
Anonymous Republican, regarding the decision to shorten Bush's summer vacation
With Eye on Political Reality, a Shorter Vacation for Bush

“ ‘Civil war’ is sort of a proxy term for wars we cannot win.”
Christopher F. Gelpi, a professor of political science at Duke, regarding the growing use of the term about Iraq
‘Civil War’ Is Uttered, and White House’s Iraq Strategy Is Dealt a Blow

"And if our corporate world is so profitable, how come so little of the growth goes to workers’ wages? How come — as an average number — basically none of the growth goes to the ordinary worker’s wages? I am not saying this to encourage strikes. I am genuinely puzzled about it."
Ben Stein, lawyer, writer, actor and economist
Everybody's Business: My Country, Right and Wrong (but Why So Wrong?)