Political Quotes of the Day

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BLITZER: All right, a serious charge. Can you cite one legislative accomplishment that Senator McCain produced during those 26 years in Washington, in order to achieve energy independence?

ROMNEY: Well, I’m not a historian that goes through all of the pieces of legislation John McCain has worked on.

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Question: "But given China’s growing strength and America’s own problems, realistically how much leverage and influence does the U.S. have here?"

THE PRESIDENT: "First of all, I don’t see America having problems. I see America as a nation that is a world leader, that has got great values."

Link

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Hannity gets a smack down:

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Hannity: I’m not getting this. Explain to me and I’m wondering if you [John Edwards] can’t keep the promise to your family, can’t keep your promise to your wife, you’re having an affair, you’re lying about the affair repeatedly, why should the American people trust you when you say you’re not going to lie to them? Why should we trust you?

Colmes: And by the way, that’s a great question Sean asks and so Amanda, if that’s true and you can’t trust somebody who had an affair. How can we trust John McCain to be President of the United States—he cheated on by his own admission on his first wife, he didn’t keep his martial vows, he didn’t keep his pledge to his first family…
John McCain cheated on his wife,... So how do we trust John McCain? He cheated on his wife, why do you have a double standard and John McCain’s running for President? John Edwards is not."
LINK

[Doug]

Hannity: I’m not getting this. Explain to me and I’m wondering if you [John Edwards] can’t keep the promise to your family, can’t keep your promise to your wife, you’re having an affair, you’re lying about the affair repeatedly, why should the American people trust you when you say you’re not going to lie to them? Why should we trust you?

DOUG
Hannity is just jealous as hell because Edwards was caught with a woman. The conservative men keep getting caught with other men.

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Posted by Dan Kervick Aug 17, 12:28AM - Link

WigWag, the reason Obama is not further ahead is that you and the other bitter Clinton dead-enders spend all your time attacking him, and encouraging your frustrated partners in sour grapes to withhold their support, and hold out for some kind of amazing, improbable convention miracle. It's selfish, vain and stupid. And it's dishonest, because you know very well that is what is going on.

You want Obama to surge ahead? Tell your spoiled Clinton camp buddies to give up the ghost, get with the program, get off Obama's back and get hard on McCain's back instead. I haven't counted up the volume of your anti-Obama spleen to your anti-McCain criticisms on TWN. But I'll bet the Obama stuff runs about 15 to 1. You're like an envious Cain or Edmund who has cut off his own brother's feet and now smugly sneers about why he is only winning his footrace by a body length. Why isn't Obama doing better? Look in the mirror you back-stabbing ass!

When this is all over, you and Bill and Hillary can go have a good cry somewhere, and bitch about how you were screwed out of your entitlement by the Obama generation. But for now ... just ... stop." Link

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The Glasgow Herald’s veteran political correspondent Iain McWhirter wonders wtf is wrong with America,...

"It seems incredible, but as the Democrats gather in Denver to anoint Barack Obama, America could be on course to re-elect a Republican as their President. Not just any Republican either, but a belligerent 71-year-old who can’t remember how many houses he owns, would happily nuke Iran and whose answer to global warming is to drill for oil in environmentally sensitive areas off the coast of America which don’t even have much oil. But according to the polls, John McCain is drawing level with Barack Obama, and even pulling ahead.

Really, America is a strange, strange country. After a disastrous and illegal war, in which 4000 American soldiers have died, in the middle of an economic crisis largely caused by the investment houses that finance the Republican party, you would have thought it almost inconceivable that the Republicans could be re-elected. Could any political brand be more toxic? Has any party in history deserved to be thrown out at an election more than the Republicans in 2008?

… Yet enough American voters believe that John McCain might have the answers for him to become a serious contender. Which is scary. McCain is not an unknown quantity - he is a highly excitable politician with a notoriously short temper, who would bring his impetuous and confrontational style into American foreign policy. With the world entering a global economic slump, and old enmities raging in Europe, John McCain as President would be like a flamethrower in a fireworks factory."

LINK

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John Kerry on Candidate McCain:

"I have known and been friends with John McCain for almost 22 years, but every day now I learn something new about Candidate McCain. To those who still believe in the myth of a maverick instead of the reality of a politician, I say let’s compare Senator McCain to Candidate McCain.

Candidate McCain now supports the very wartime tax cuts that Senator McCain once called irresponsible. Candidate McCain criticizes Senator McCain’s own climate change bill. Candidate McCain says he would vote against the immigration bill that Senator McCain wrote.

Are you kidding me, folks?

“Before he ever debates Barack Obama, he should finish the debate with himself.”
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Actor Richard Dreyfuss:

Dreyfuss: I don’t think the Europeans have any confidence in our government. I think that the last eight years has destroyed two hundred years of respect and dedication. And I think we have been the point of meaning and admiration in the world for very specific reasons, and George Bush trashed it.

O’Donnell: So, you don’t think that John McCain would be able to manage this government well, would have a different response than George Bush to a Hurricane Katrina?

Dreyfuss: I think the Republican party is corrupt through and through. And even the republicans like Buckley before he died said ‘we should lose this election, go into the wilderness, and get cleansed’, and I believe that’s true. I think that they have been in office too long. I think that they are too adept at thievery, at moving the Constitution into places it never meant to go. I think that they have an extraordinary ability to divide rather than unite. And I think that I’m tired of being called a traitor, because I like my flag and I support the troops.
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"We obviously honor and respect McCain’s service and the five-and-a-half years of horror that he went through at the hands of the North Vietnamese; but it’s not an excuse for everything. He has already used it to explain away his infidelities in his first marriage. He’s used it to defend his healthcare plan. He just the other day used it to deflect accusations of having skirted the rules of the Saddleback forum.

It’s time for the Senator to stop cheapening the war experiences of thousands of vets and his fellow POWs, and his own as well, by stretching the boundaries of logic to make his POW status a wild-card rebuttal to all accusations or an answer to all difficult questions." Link

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Pat Buchanan on Obama's speech:

“I stand with Obama! It was a genuinely outstanding speech, it was magnificent. I saw Cuomo’s speech, I saw Kennedy in ‘80, I even saw Douglas MacArthur, I saw MLK; this is the greatest convention speech and probably the most important because unlike Cuomo and the others, this was an acceptance speech, this came out of the heart of America, and he went right at the heart of America. This wasn’t a liberal speech at all. This is a deeply, deeply centrist speech. It had wit, it had humor, and when he used the needle on McCain, he stuck it into McCain and it was funny."

Link

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Q: Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?

PALIN: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the Founding Fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.

The phrase was added in 1954.
C & L

DAR
There is no evidence any founder ever heard or uttered the phrases "One Nation Under God" or "In God We Trust." That's all Christian claptrap added later. There is a whole Christian misinformation industry devoted to teaching people false information about US history.

D.

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Digby on Lieberman attacking Obama at the republican convention:

"God how I loathe and despise this sanctimonious jackass. How dare he call himself a Democrat and presume to LECTURE and harangue us to vote for a rightwing nutcase for president.

And what’s the first thing out of Wolf Blitzer’s mouth? “Anyone who knows Joe Lieberman, knows that he speaks from the heart.” Sure he does — he’s always been a prick, even when he was a Democrat and he is even more of one today. He is a perfect Republican — hypocritical, bloodthirsty and completely full of shit. Enjoy GOPers, he’s all yours."

Digby

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GIBSON: Can you honestly say you feel confident having someone who hasn’t traveled outside the United States until last year, dealing with an insurgent Russia, with an Iran with nuclear ambitions, with an unstable Pakistan, not to mention the war on terror?

MCCAIN: Sure. And one of the key elements of America’s national security requirements are energy. She understands the energy issues better than anybody I know in Washington, D.C., and she understands. Alaska is right next to Russia. She understands that.

Link

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DAR
In case you were wondering if this claim about "McCain voting with Bush over 90% of the time" is true, here is an Obama ad showing footage of McCain bragging about it.

Cool.

Here's a great one too. As Bush's popularity plummets McCain votes with him even more. 100% in 2008, 95% in 2007. This clip has been seen almost a quarter of a million times.

D.

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DAR
Gloria Steinem on Palin, in the LA Times.

"Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton’s candidacy stood for — and that Barack Obama’s still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, “Somebody stole my shoes, so I’ll amputate my legs.”

Palin’s value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women’s wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves “abstinence-only” programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers’ millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn’t spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger."

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Bob Herbert kicking some tail in the NYT's

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Running From Reality

Saturday 06 September 2008

by: Bob Herbert, The New York Times

If there was one pre-eminent characteristic of the Republican convention this week, it was the quality of deception. Words completely lost their meaning. Reality was turned upside down.

From the faux populist gibberish mouthed by speaker after speaker, you would never have known that the Republicans have been in power over the past several years and used that titanic power to lead the country to its present sorry state.

In his acceptance speech on Thursday night, Senator John McCain did his best Sam Cooke imitation ("A Change is Gonna Come") and vowed to put the country "back on the road to prosperity and peace."

Mr. McCain spoke at the end of a day in which stock market indexes plunged. The next morning the Labor Department gave us the grim news that another 84,000 jobs had been lost in August, and that the official unemployment rate had climbed to 6.1 percent - the highest in five years.

If there were any good ideas at this convention of mostly rich and mostly right-wing delegates about how to haul the country out of this mess that the G.O.P. has gotten it into, they were kept well hidden. Perhaps they were tucked away behind the more prominently displayed creationism and "just-say-no to global warming" documents.

It stretches the mind almost to the breaking point to think of John McCain as an agent of substantive change. He once believed that Phil Gramm was the most qualified person in the United States to be president. And he now believes that Sarah Palin is the most qualified to be vice president.

That is not the fault of Mr. Gramm or Ms. Palin. But it sure tells us a lot about the judgment of John McCain."

Link