Frank Rich's Gestapo Tactics
"Our humanity has been compromised by those who use Gestapo tactics in our war. The longer we stand idly by while they do so, the more we resemble those 'good Germans' who professed ignorance of their own Gestapo . It's up to us to wake up our somnambulant Congress to challenge administration policy every day. Let the war's last supporters filibuster all night if they want to. There is nothing left to lose except whatever remains of our country's good name." - Columnist Frank Rich, October 14.
Those Panicky Pro-Life Christians
"What unites them right now is their dismay - even panic - at the idea of Rudolph W. Giuliani as the Republican nominee, because of his support for abortion rights and gay rights, as well as what they regard as a troubling history of marital infidelity....Religious conservatives were alarmed last month when none of the Republican front-runners showed up for the Values Voter Debate Straw Poll in Fort Lauderdale, Fla....The panic that has gripped the leadership of the religious right is over how the only candidate who doesn't stand with them on abortion and has barely bothered to court them can prevail...." - Laurie Goodstein, October 7.
Still Succumbing to Murderous Che Guevara Chic
"In fact, 40 years after his death, Che - born Ernesto Guevara de la Serna - is as much a marketing tool as an international revolutionary icon. Which raises the question of what exactly does the sheer proliferation of his image - the distant gaze, the scraggly beard and the beret adorned with a star - mean in a decidedly capitalist world?....Even in Cuba, one of the world's last Communist bastions, Che is used both to make a buck and to make a point. 'He sells,' acknowledged a Cuban shop clerk, who had Che after Che staring down from a wall full of T-shirts....But at least here he is also used to inspire the next generation of Cubans." - Marc Lacey, October 9.
The Phrase That Pays
"With his domestic agenda in tatters, President Bush tried Tuesday to prod Congress into reauthorizing his biggest domestic achievement, the 2001 No Child Left Behind education law." - Opening of a Sheryl Gay Stolberg story on Bush, October 10.
"With the 2008 presidential campaign in full swing, Democrats running Congress and his domestic agenda in tatters after the defeat of his immigration bill, Mr. Bush is confronting the fact that he can no longer drive the news agenda as he once could." - Stolberg, July 11. (Emphasis added in both quotes.)
Gore, From "Lost Soul" to "International Hero"
"The former vice president has undergone an extraordinary metamorphosis, after all, publicly evolving from likely president-elect to stunning loser to lost soul to national and even international hero." - Jim Rutenberg, October 11.
Rewriting Recent History: Supreme Court Made Gore Lose in 2000?
"One can generate a lot of heartburn thinking about all of the things that would be better about this country and the world if the Supreme Court had done the right thing and ruled for Al Gore instead of George W. Bush in 2000. Mr. Gore certainly hasn't let his disappointment stop him from putting the time since to very good use." - Times editorial, October 13.
Reality check: "A comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots from last year's presidential election reveals that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward." - Ford Fessenden and John Broder's story in the November 12, 2001 New York Times.