Old Fogey's Quotes for Thursday

"It is imperative that the reconstruction start now!"
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's astonishing plea to Congress last month (three years and $30 billion later)
Marshall Plan, Minus the Plan

"It just smells like this was a fixed fight from the get-go."
Keith Ashdown, vice president of the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, regarding new FEMA contracts going to the four companies that got no-bid contracts and had huge cost overruns.
Big Katrina Contractors Win More FEMA Work

"The nations were caught in a trap, a trap made during the first thirty days out of battles that failed to be decisive, a trap from which there was, and has been, no exit."
Barbara Tuchman in her classic, "The Guns of August," about the start of WWI
The Guns Of August

"People don't want Democratic politicians whose grotesquely nuanced positions on issues make their utterances incomprehensible or meaningless or both."
Eli Pariser, executive director of the MoveOn Political Action Committee
The Death of Triangulation

“If the business world didn’t reach out to the GLBT community, years from now the result would be staggering—not only to the U.S. economy, but to the global economy.”
Matt Milligan, of PricewaterhouseCooper
Gay M.B.A. Students Make Strides on Wall Street

“Look, we’ve had this experience, with Katrina, and we thought we were doing it right. But we learned that many people who want to leave can’t leave.”
Condoleezza Rice, regarding Israel's warning to Lebanese residents to evacuate
Rice’s Hurdles on Middle East Begin at Home

“We don’t bring money, we’re not bringing members. But we’re bringing something that’s extremely important: very humble, very vulnerable workers who say, ‘I need to get paid more for what I do.’ ”
Pablo Alvarado, director of the network, a loose association of day laborers and worker centers across the country, regarding partnership agreement with AFL-CIO
Labor Federation Forms a Pact With Day Workers

'The Iowa State Fair is a showcase for turkey calling, prized sheep, 600 pounds of butter carved in the shape of heifer and another breed lurking this year -- 2008 White House hopefuls."
Associated Press news release
Iowa to Showcase White House Hopefuls