It's "Deranged" to Not Raise Taxes
"I think that the conversation right now is deranged. We have in one room the deficit commission folks saying, 'Look at this huge hole, look at the tax increases and serious spending cuts that we need to do to fill it.' And then outside the room, we're having a debate about whether we should add $4 trillion to the deficit long-term or a mere 3.3. This is crazy."
- Washington Post columnist and former deputy national editor Ruth Marcus on ABC's This Week, November 14.
"Better Off" If Tax-Cutting Republicans Left America
"We have a political party demanding that we borrow money to pay for tax cuts on household income above a quarter million, while it is at the same time refusing to borrow a lot less money so that middle class Americans who can't find work can keep their homes and just barely keep their heads above water....They don't live in this world. They don't live in this country. And I think we'd be better off if they didn't live in this country."
- MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, November 18 Countdown.
Cheering Obama's Big Bailout, Ruing "Abysmal" Communications
"If GM had gone bankrupt and large portions of it had been closed down, we could have lost several hundred thousand jobs....The administration's communications effort on this has been absolutely abysmal. It's quite extraordinary to me how they haven't put this forward more forcefully and how the public still doesn't see just how different a kind of bailout this was than the Wall Street bailouts, which remain deservedly unpopular."
- Ed Luce, Washington Bureau Chief for the Financial Times, talking about the administration's bailout of General Motors on ABC's This Week, November 21.
The Job's Just Too Much for The Anointed One?
"The issue is not Obama, it's the office....Can any single person fully meet the demands of the 21st-century presidency?...Among a handful of presidential historians Newsweek contacted for this story, there was a general consensus that the modern presidency may have become too bloated."
- Newsweek's Daniel Stone in the magazine's November 22 cover story [1] showing a multi-armed Obama juggling the world's problems with the headline, "God of All Things."
Pleading With Murkowski to Fight Conservative Tide
"You talk about governance based on anger or fear. You're a moderate Republican....Will you stand up against other Republicans who may feel that the only way for them to succeed is for the President not to succeed?"
- NBC's Matt Lauer to Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski on Today, November 18.
Sarah Palin Is "An Extraordinary Ass"
"The governor says she's an extraordinary asset to her party. I say she's an extraordinary ass, frankly.... I pray Sarah Palin is their opponent for Barack Obama. The more the woman says, the more trouble she gets into."
- TruTV anchor and former ABC 20/20 reporter Jami Floyd on MSNBC's Jansing & Co., November 19.
More Hatred of Obama than Love of America
"If you picked two countries that would like to see a failure of ratification, it would be North Korea and Iran. And I think if that argument doesn't work with the Republicans, that sort of basic elemental national security argument doesn't work, nothing is. There's a greater hatred of Obama than there is a love of American national security."
- Financial Times Washington Bureau Chief Ed Luce, November 21 This Week on ABC, referring to the START treaty.
Bush's Legacy = "Thoughtless Carnage"
"Bush's was an exhausting presidency that will, I suspect, be remembered more for its waste - of time, lives, money, moral standing and economic strength - than for anything else....Far too much testosterone was spent kicking irrelevant butts and landing, breathless with self-regard, on carrier decks to celebrate victories that were Pyrrhic at best. We struggle to recover from the thoughtless carnage of his tenure."
- Time's Joe Klein reviewing the former President's memoir Decision Points in the November 22 edition [2].
Tea Party Turning Us Into Nation of Irrational Teenagers
"What do you call an electorate that seems prone to acting out irrationally, is full of inchoate rage, and is constantly throwing fits and tantrums? You call it teenaged. Is voting for a deranged Tea Party candidate such as Christine O'Donnell, who has no demonstrable talent for lawmaking, or much else, so different from shouting, 'Whatever!' and slamming the bedroom door? Is moaning that Obama doesn't emote enough or get sufficiently angry so different from screaming, 'You don't understand!!!'"
- Vanity Fair magazine Editor-in-Chief Graydon Carter in the December issue [3].
Prefers Less Freedom If It Helps the Environment
"Everybody says in a survey, 'Oh, do you want to live greener? Do you personally care about the environment?' 'Yes.' 'Are you willing to spend 25 cents extra in a federal gas tax that would definitely help improve the use of fuel?' 'Not so much.'...I mean, I have my own compost bin and I use biodegradable soaps and all of that kind of stuff. But research shows we can do that all we want, but until government here, Susan, sets policy, until government says these are the standards that everyone has to aspire to, we're not really making progress."
- Anchor Contessa Brewer on MSNBC Live, November 15. [Audio/video (0:46): Windows Media [4] | MP3 audio [5]]
No Wonder You're Obama's Pet
New York Times columnist David Brooks: "Though I'm skeptical of many of the things government does, I still try to defend the craft of governance...."
Columnist Gail Collins: "This is why Barack Obama likes you so much. (Admit it, when you're around he ignores every other journalist in the room.) It's because he sees you as the kind of sane Republican he was planning to be bipartisan with."
- From the pair's weekly NYTimes.com online chat [6], November 10.
Matthews Ranks Lefty Agitprop Film Beside Casablanca
"While there will never be another Casablanca, Fair Game is perfect for our murky time. It's the great story of two people caught up in a dirty, ruthless campaign to justify a war that most Americans can see now was never justified either by fact or the fiction ordered up to sell it. Want to understand Iraq and how we got there? Want a real look at the Bush White House and how they got us there? Want to see on the big screen what our nightly fights here are all about? Go see this movie."
- Chris Matthews on Hardball, November 9, talking about the Sean Penn/Naomi Watts movie about the Valerie Plame case. [Audio/video (1:48): Windows Media [7] | MP3 audio [8]]
Want to Go Double or Nothing?
Co-host Dan Harris: "You wrote a book last year, I believe, that predicted 40 more years of Democratic dominance in Washington."
Democratic strategist James Carville: "Right. I did."
Harris: "Given what happened not long ago in those elections, do you stand by that prediction?"
Carville: "Yeah. I do."
- ABC's Good Morning America, November 13.
Voters' Real Message to Democrats: Go Left
"The lesson to learn is to see the more liberal you were if you were a member of Congress in last week's election, the more likely it was that you got reelected. The conservative Democrats, the majority of them were booted out. The liberals won. He [President Obama] should take this country in the progressive direction that he was elected to take it in."
- Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore on CNN's Larry King Live, November 12.
Falsely Mocking Bush as White House Drunk
NPR host Peter Sagal: "Now, you tell some great stories in the book. Tell us about your first week as President."
Clip of President Bush extracted from the audio version of his memoir: "I had a few beers with the guys on Monday night. On Tuesday, I'd fix my favorite after dinner drink, Benedictine and brandy. I had a couple of bourbon-and-Sevens after I put Barbara and Jenna to bed on Wednesday."
Sagal: "Well, yeah, you've earned a celebration, I guess. But then you got down to business, right? Tell us what you did next."
Clip of Bush: "Thursday and Friday were beer-drinking nights." (Laughter)
Sagal: "Well, that's remarkable, that's some first week. How did you manage to fit all that in while being President?"
Clip of Bush: "You put your teeth on the edge of the mug, tilt your head back and the beer goes down your throat."
- NPR's Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me, November 13. As he recounted in Decision Points, Bush stopped drinking in 1986. [Audio (1:41): MP3 audio [9]]
A Peek Into the Insular World of CBS News
"The [Gallup] survey said that only 44 percent of us approve of President Obama's performance. Well, I surveyed nine of my friends, and eight of them said they liked Obama but didn't trust Gallup polls. As far as I'm concerned, Obama's doing the best job he knows how, and it's good enough for me."
- CBS's Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes, November 14.
USA Today Reporter Outs Himself - As a Democrat
"When I came out to my parents, they were not surprised, as most parents of gay children are not. The real trouble came when I told my mother I had become a Democrat. My dad was still alive and sitting in the living room. She just stared at me for a moment. 'Please don't tell your father this,' she said. 'It'll kill him.' And so I lived the life of a closeted Democrat and Dad lived for several more years. He never asked, and I never told."
- USA Today features reporter Craig Wilson in his "Final Word" column [10], November 10.
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