Old Fogey's Quotes for Sunday

"I don't know what the new course would be. The options are extremely limited now. The new course that's necessary is new Iraqi leadership."
Richard N. Perle, former head of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board and an early supporter of the war
A Month of Second Thoughts on Iraq
[The people to blame for the fiascos of Vietnam and Iraq are not the ones who 'cut and ran' but those who got us into the unwinnable messes in the first place. History has already been harsh in its judgement of LBJ's actions. I expect the same is in store for Bush.]

“It would be a shocking turning back to say only the commission can bring fraud cases. Private enforcement is a necessary supplement to the work that the S.E.C. does. It is also a safety valve against the potential capture of the agency by industry.”
Harvey J. Goldschmid, a former S.E.C. commissioner and law professor atColumbia University, referring to legislative proposals by businesses hoping to roll back some of the regulations passed in the wake of the Enron et al scandals
Businesses Seek Protection on Legal Front
[One of the best reasons for voting Democratic is the possibility that indutries will no longer be able to control the regulatory machinery meant to reign in their excesses. ]

"All the elements of society have been dismantled. You are afraid because you are a woman, a man, a Sunni, a Shiite, a Kurd.
All these things start to change society.”
Fawsia Abdul al-Attiya, a sociologist and a professor at Baghdad University
Iraqis See the Little Things Fade Away in War’s Gloom
[This article reminds us of the human costs of the inability to provide security in Iraq. We should never lose sight of the devastating effects of this war on those who live in the middle of the battlefields.]

"Just as events in Iraq undermine GOP reassurances about the conflict, so anxious financial discussions in American homes help explain why Republicans are gaining so little from today's economic numbers -- numbers that once would have seemed like tickets to victory."
Jacob S. Hacker, a Yale University professor and New America Foundation fellow, is author of "The Great Risk Shift" (Oxford Univ. Press)
It's Not the Economy, Stupid
[Read this entire piece. It helps to illuminate a major problem with this economy--the increased risks for the average worker. Polls show Americans favor security above opportunity. I can relate to that. My first husband sold insurance (not very successfully), and much worse than the relative poverty was the inability to know future income. Living hand-to-mouth is a lot easier if you know for sure how much is going to be in the hand.]

"Now spending is out of control. Rather than rolling back government, we have a new $1.2 trillion Medicare prescription drug benefit, and non-defense discretionary spending is growing twice as fast as it had in the Clinton administration. Meanwhile, Social Security is collapsing while rogue nations are going nuclear and the Middle East is more combustible than ever. Yet Republican lawmakers have taken up such issues as flag burning, Terri Schiavo and same-sex marriage."
Dick Armey, the House majority leader from 1995 to 2003, currently chairman of the think tank FreedomWorks
Where We Went Wrong
[Among the many sins of this administration and congress, one is the trivialization of politics. Because they are wrong or incompetent on the major issues, they have to make major issues out of minor ones.]