Today begins the celebration of the life and legacy of a true patriot, Senator Lindsey Graham.
As we begin the solemn process of laying Senator Graham to rest, we remember and reflect on a lifetime defined by service, sacrifice, and an unwavering devotion to South Carolina and… pic.twitter.com/LQOxOZvC9a
— South Carolina Republican Party (@SCGOP) July 28, 2026
🚨 Lindsey Graham's sister Darline Graham is emotional as she touches the casket of her brother in the Capitol 💔 pic.twitter.com/ZRNsrDpMjU
WATCH: Lindsey Graham's casket is carried out of the Washington National Cathedral following a moving memorial service attended by President Trump, Cabinet members, and world leaders.
Memorial services will continue in South Carolina on Wednesday, featuring a final visit to the… pic.twitter.com/c2J7NTuwSx
After twenty years in congress, Curt Weldon was about to become chairman of the House Armed Services Committee when he publicly questioned the accuracy of the 9-11 report. In retaliation, the Bush administration sent federal agents to his daughter’s house and ended his political… pic.twitter.com/vxiDRI8pfz
Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, in the midst of a Midwestern campaign swing, stumbled badly Monday when attempting to answer a question about whether he agreed or disagreed with President Barack Obama's approach to handling the Libyan crisis.
Meeting with Journal Sentinel reporters and editors before fundraising appearances in Milwaukee and Green Bay, Cain was discussing foreign policy in general when he was asked specifically about Obama's handling of Libya.
Cain paused for some time, then wanted to clarify that Obama had supported the uprising. Clearly struggling to articulate a response, Cain paused again, saying, "Got all of this stuff twirling around in my head."
Finally, Cain said: "I would have done a better job of determining who the opposition is. And I'm sure that our intelligence people had some of that information. Based upon who made up that opposition . . . might have caused me to make some different decisions about how we participated. Secondly, no I did not agree with (Moammar) Gadhafi killing his citizens. Absolutely not. . . . I would have supported many of the things that they did to help stop that."
Cain said the question of America's involvement in Libya was not a simple yes or no question. "I would have gone about assessing the situation differently. It might have caused us to end up in the same place."
Told that a number of Republican leaders had praised Obama for his handling of the situation, Cain said he wasn't criticizing the president, "I just don't think enough was done relative to assessing the opposition before everything exploded."
Here's video of Cain addressing the Libya question:
Oh, my God! Did you see that? He "stumbled badly."
Blah, blah, blah.
The Journal Sentinel brags about its "gotcha" moment:
Cain's answer, which began with a discussion of President George W. Bush's foreign policy before the Libya question came up, was recorded on video and posted as part of a series of unedited excerpts on the Journal Sentinel's online site. Each excerpt pertained to a different topic. The video quickly went viral and was linked to and embedded on a number of political websites around the country, as well as national newspapers and nightly cable and network news broadcasts.
Oh, good grief.
Who cares?
Why is that part of the coverage?
"Yippee! Our video went viral." That's irrelevant.
How unprofessional!
(The video is no "double rainbow guy.")
After the Journal Sentinel interview and a fundraiser in Milwaukee, Cain rode his campaign bus to Green Bay's Lambeau Field. As the bus approached its destination, his spokesman began fielding a flurry of media phone calls about his response to the Libya question.
When a Journal Sentinel reporter riding on the Cain bus asked him about the reaction his interview was getting, Cain responded with a smile and indicated he found the reaction ridiculous.
"I paused to make sure I didn't say something wrong. The fact of the matter is, I didn't. I didn't say anything wrong . . . but the fact I didn't answer immediately - I'm going to be honest with you, that is silly. That is silly!"
Said Cain: "I call it flyspecking every word, every phrase, and now they are flyspecking my pauses, but I guess since they can't legitimately attack my ideas, they will attack word and pauses. I'm kind of flattered that my pauses are so important that somebody wants to make a story out of it."
By the time his bus arrived at his campaign tailgate party at Lambeau, a large media scrum was waiting, and the first question was about the way he handled the question about Libya.
This is really lame.
Considering Obama can't get out a sentence correctly even when he's using his teleprompter, and considering that he is completely lost without it, I don't think it's fair to give so much weight to Cain's less than entirely smooth delivery when answering the Libya question.
If the JS Editorial Board had asked me the same question, I would have said that it's difficult to discuss Obama's approach to the Libya situation because it was so vague.
He supposedly applied the "lead from behind" doctrine.
Ooh! Lead from behind!
In other words, he dithered and stayed out of the way, then he took credit for skillfully removing Gaddafi from power, killing him.
In terms of stumbling badly on foreign policy, Cain's awkward response is nothing compared to Obama's recent remarks about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
U.S. President Barack Obama mentioned on Sunday morning the embarrassing gaffe that took place on November 3, when what he thought a private conversation between himself and French President Nicolas Sarkozy was broadcast to reporters.
Obama acknowledged the incident but refused to comment on disparaging remarks he and Sarkozy had made about Prime Minister Netanyahu. “With respect to the ‘hot mic’ in France, I'm not going to comment on conversations that I have with individual leaders,” Obama said in Hawaii.
Unaware that a microphone in the meeting room at the G20 summit at Cannes was on , Sarkozy was heard on November 3 calling Netanyahu "a liar" in what he thought was a private exchange with Obama.
"I cannot bear Netanyahu, he's a liar," Sarkozy told Obama, who was also unaware that the mic had been turned on and was being monitored by reporters via the headsets used for simultaneous translations.
Obama didn't exactly defend Netanyahu in that conversation, either. "You're fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you," Obama replied, according to wire service reports.
Now that is stumbling badly.
I think the Journal Sentinel's gushing over its "viral video" is also a bad stumble. ____________________
Thousands of Penn State students were not happy that football coach Joe Paterno was fired in the wake of the child molestation scandal involving assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.
Thousands of Penn State students loudly and angrily displayed their displeasure over the firing of football coach Joe Paterno on Wednesday night, rioting, screaming and loudly chanting, hours after the school's Board of Trustees fired the 46-year head coach.
Lamp posts were tipped over and broken on Beaver Avenue, part of the campus business district, where students were met by police and pepper spray. A television truck was overturned, and students rushed the university's administration building, "Old Main," a couple of blocks away.
Students chanted "We Are Penn State," "We want Joe" and "One more game" and yelled Paterno's name as they rushed the building, where a half-dozen police officers waited on the steps, preventing the mob from going inside.
The ugly tone of the evening was set at the Board of Trustees' news conference when an audible gasp went through the room at the Penn Stater Resort as John Surma, the Board's vice chairman, announced Paterno was no longer the coach.
More than one student in the audience yelled, "Your campus is going to burn tonight," shortly after the announcement, which came at about 10:15 p.m. ET.
Police said they had not been informed in advance of the board's decision.
So police prevented the disgruntled students from occupying "Old Main."
They had a better handle on the situation than Madison police did when protesters squatted in the Capitol building for weeks last February and March. Oh, that's right. Madison police put out the welcome mat for them.
Back to Paterno, Sandusky, and the crimes...
Why are thousand of students showing such fervent support for Paterno?
He knew Sandusky preyed on children. He kept a monster on his staff. While Paterno was loyal to his friend, he didn't do the right thing.
Paterno is a legend. Forty-six years is a long time to hold a job, longer than Muammar Gaddafi was in power in Libya. Naturally, there would be some mixed emotions upon his firing.
Students can show appreciation for Paterno and what he meant to the university. That's nice. But under the circumstances, this rally showing undying support for him is another matter.
The students don't seem to care about Sandusky's victims. They don't seem to want to hold Paterno accountable. They refuse to acknowledge all the wrongdoing.
It's unsettling that they don't understand why Paterno was fired, or they don't care. The fact that they find his forced departure to be unjust makes me question their moral bearings.
Penn State is experiencing a morality crisis, on so many levels. _________________
I don't think he'll have to issue any apologies like he did when he revealed what a callous and cold individual he is. He could apologize to the viewers for his shameless politicking, but he didn't disgrace himself the way he did when he compared his poor bowling ability to that of a Special Olympics participant.
Certainly, Obama owes the country an apology for his disastrous policies.
Leno owes his viewers an apology for being the willing stooge, accepting Obama's spin without challenge.
I really don't blame Leno too much because he's not meant to do a tough interview.
The question becomes: What is a sitting U.S. president doing on the Tonight Show?
I think it makes Obama seem small. It diminishes the office.
Here's video, by topic:
President Obama on the death of Gaddafi.
President Obama on Republicans opposing the withdrawal from Iraq.
President Obama's reaction to the GOP debates.
President Obama on Halloween and the White House getting egged.
Here's the complete interview video:
Part 1: President Obama on Gaddafi, Bin Laden and withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
Part 2: President Obama on Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and the Occupy Wall Street Movement.
Part 3: President Obama on stopping to eat at Roscoe's plus more on Halloween and GOP.
Here's Obama "acting":
Presidential Cold Open - President Obama's teleprompter.
Reporting from Beirut— Libya's new leaders declared their nation "liberated" on Sunday, paving the way for elections and a constitution that the revolutionary government says will put the country on a path to its first representative democracy.
"Democracy" shouldn't be confused with freedom for all.
Libya is liberated but that doesn't mean the plan is for the country to be free from oppression.
The long-awaited pronouncement came with a heavy dose of Islamist sentiment, as Mustafa Abdul Jalil, leader of the transitional government, embraced the Muslim code known as Sharia law as a foundation for future legislation.
During his more than four decades in power, Moammar Kadafi viewed Islamists as a threat and jailed hundreds of suspected religious militants. But Jalil, a former justice minister in Kadafi's regime, signaled that Islam would have a central place in the new Libya, imposing two Islamic-style edicts — capping interest rates and lifting restrictions on how many wives men may have.
Islamists are one of a number of groups seeking a stake in the new Libya. Many Libyans are also advocating a secular state. The transitional leaders have repeatedly emphasized the nation's "moderate" version of Islam and dismissed as far-fetched the notion of an Iranian-style theocracy emerging in Libya. Still, some Western leaders who backed the rebellion have voiced concern about the possible rise of fundamentalist rule in Libya.
In his remarks about the killing of Muammar Gaddafi, Obama put a nice, shiny spin on the future.
OBAMA: The dark shadow of tyranny has been lifted. And with this enormous promise, the Libyan people now have a great responsibility -- to build an inclusive and tolerant and democratic Libya that stands as the ultimate rebuke to Qaddafi’s dictatorship. We look forward to the announcement of the country’s liberation, the quick formation of an interim government, and a stable transition to Libya’s first free and fair elections. And we call on our Libyan friends to continue to work with the international community to secure dangerous materials, and to respect the human rights of all Libyans –- including those who have been detained.
We’re under no illusions -- Libya will travel a long and winding road to full democracy. There will be difficult days ahead. But the United States, together with the international community, is committed to the Libyan people. You have won your revolution. And now, we will be a partner as you forge a future that provides dignity, freedom and opportunity.
It seems to me that it's nuts for Obama to say "[w]e're under no illusions."
Radical Islam doesn't mean "dignity, freedom and opportunity" for all Libyans.
Two months after Western-backed rebels ended 42 years of eccentric, often bloody, one-man rule by capturing the capital Tripoli, his death and the fall of the final bastion ended a nervous hiatus for the new interim government, which is now set to declare formal "liberation" with a timetable for elections.
The killing or capture of senior aides, including possibly two sons, as an armored convoy braved NATO air strikes in a desperate bid to break out of Sirte, may ease fears of diehards regrouping elsewhere - though cellphone video apparently of Gaddafi alive and being beaten may inflame his sympathizers.
A Libyan official said Gaddafi, 69, was killed in custody.
"We confirm that all the evils, plus Gaddafi, have vanished from this beloved country," interim Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril said in Tripoli as the body was delivered, a prize of war, to Misrata, the city whose siege and suffering at the hands of Gaddafi's forces made it a symbol of the rebel cause.
"It's time to start a new Libya, a united Libya," Jibril added. "One people, one future." A formal declaration of liberation, that will set the clock ticking on a timeline to elections, would be made by Friday, he said.
Gaddafi is gone. Who will replace him? A democracy-friendly leader?
After Obama's Rose Garden statement at 1:00 PM CT, on NBC, a reporter in Libya told Brian Williams that there was a beautiful fireworks display celebrating Gaddafi's death. She also said children could be heard yelling, "Allahu Akbar," God is great!
"Allahu Akbar!"
I can't help but be reminded of the 9/11 terrorists whenever I hear that.
Still waiting for the Osama bin Laden death photo.
President Barack Obama faces the challenge on Monday of convincing Americans he has clear military aims and a U.S. exit strategy in the Libya conflict as he seeks to counter growing congressional criticism.
In a high-stakes televised address, Obama -- accused by many lawmakers of failing to explain the U.S. role in the Western air campaign against Libya's Muammar Gaddafi -- will try to define the mission's purpose and scope.
This should be interesting.
Obama is on the record slamming President Bush and U.S. involvement in Iraq. He declared that to be a "dumb war."
What brilliance!
It's going to be tough for him to explain why action in Libya is appropriate with his history of insisting military operations in Iraq were not.
Obama is going to have to do a lot of contortions to give the impression that he knows what he's doing regarding Libya.
To date, he and his administration haven't given the American people a coherent message.
Last night, Brian Williams was a guest on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
Brian Williams makes relatively frequent appearances on the show, taking time out as NBC Nightly News anchor to serve in comic roles. For example, a regular feature on the show is "slow jam the news," when Williams and Fallon, with help from The Roots, address an issue in the news. Watch them comment on the recent protests in Madison.
Unlike the political pontificating engaged in by David Letterman and Jay Leno with certain guests, Jimmy Fallon usually steers away from such discussions.
It was a little bit different yesterday when Fallon interviewed Williams. While it was still a very light-hearted segment throughout, Fallon tossed out a few of his concerns regarding Obama and those advising him.
Here's video:
Brian Williams, Part 1
Transcript
JIMMY FALLON: It's crazy at this time right now. I think, am I counting wrong? But are we in three wars?
BRIAN WILLIAMS: We're in three. It's early yet. We got some time.
FALLON: I mean, what is happening? Can you take me through, like...?
WILLIAMS: So you got your Iraq winding down. You got your Afghanistan, nobody loves. And the greatest Americans we've ever fielded are over there - Staff sergeants making no money at all, getting their combat bonus, supporting a family back home, slogging through it. And then we have fired as of today 162 cruise missiles from mostly U.S. Navy ships and submarines offshore.
So while they're not fighting on the ground, remember, this is fuelers, pilots, all those deck hands, all those men and women working on all those ships, aircraft, fueling 'em up. There's a lot of people engaged in this third front.
FALLON: Have we ever seen anything like this in our country?
WILLIAMS: We haven't been this busy. I don't think our military's been at this busy a footing.
FALLON: It's insane. And our goal for this Libya thing is so that Qaddafi or Gaddafi - is there a real thing?
WILLIAMS: Pick one. We got a couple spellings. I've gone with the "G." I've gone with the "Kh." I've gone with just the "K."
FALLON: Haddafi?
WILLIAMS: Never that. But yeah, the goal can't be to take him out. He's not a target. The Pentagon briefers said last Sunday, 'Look, if he happens to be in a building that we hit...'
FALLON: (Going into a Robert DeNiro-esque impression) 'Scuse me. What? Are you kidding me? I don't remember anything.
That is just insane, I think with all that stuff. And it feels like to me that President Obama is playing soccer in Rio with kids, and Hillary Clinton seems to be weirdly stepping up, almost like she's being very presidential. I feel like, isn't it weird?
WILLIAMS: It might be a bit unfair. He... You gotta remember, Jimmy, the machinery of the presidency, a lot like when you travel, the machinery of the presidency comes with the president. When you travel you get the Late Night computer and your paging devices so that decisions back in New York about guests, musical order, can be made by you. The president has scrambled phones. He's got video conferencing. He's got the three big Irishmen in his life - Donilon, Brennan, and Daley - who are a part of his inner circle. He's got all of his people. They're all reachable. While he may come back early from this trip to South America, I think the command and control... American people like to see the president.
FALLON: Why is he there again?
WILLIAMS: Well, this was a trip that to have cancelled this...
FALLON: Costs so much money.
WILLIAMS: Yeah. Right.
FALLON: He can't get a refund? Come on!
Brian Williams, Part 2
Transcript
JIMMY FALLON: What is going down? He's making NCAA, he's doing his brackets on ESPN. I'm like, who is advising this man?
BRIAN WILLIAMS: I think we've seen a little political 'tude coming out tonight. This is interesting.
FALLON: Come on. A little change...
WILLIAMS: I think this is interesting. I never heard you go into this area before.
FALLON: I don't normally do it, but I get upset. I mean, I have better people advising me than the president does.
WILLIAMS: Actually, I've met your staff... Just one thing to remember: Every cruise missile - about $1 million, 162 of those. Think of what goes into launching each one, target selection, all that. It's a crazy world.
FALLON: It's a tough job.
WILLIAMS: I feel like you have to hang on to something.
FALLON: I'm very patriotic. I'm always rooting for the president. I just feel like, what is going on? I feel like I want to hear from him.
WILLIAMS: Well, this is a tough perception. The White House has to deal with this because, seriously, if you're saying it, and you do hear this across America, it means it's real. And it means they've got to deal with the perception, even though he's with his daughters and they get very little time off. He's down in South America, three country tour, doing all the official business. I don't work for them. I cover them all equally - Democrats, Republicans. They've got an appearance issue if you're saying they do. You have that kind of sway.
FALLON: Exactly. He watches this show all the time.
It's funny that Williams felt he needed to defend Obama and then qualify it by saying, "I don't work for them," as if we might forget his role as unbiased newsman.
I think the direction of the discussion caught Williams off guard just a little, though I like the way Jimmy expressed his concerns. I liked the 'tude.
What I especially liked is that it was a topical discussion without being polarizing and preachy. It was still funny and entertaining.
"I don't oppose all wars... What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne."
John Hawkins raises some interesting questions about Obama's war in Libya.
Hawkins writes:
It seems like it was just yesterday when we had an "imperialist warmonger" in the White House who was going to be replaced by a peace-loving Democrat who promised "hope" and "change" instead. It's funny how that worked out, isn't it? We still have troops in Iraq, we've escalated the war in Afghanistan, and now we're bombing everything that moves in Libya. Yet, the same liberals who were protesting in the streets and calling George Bush a war criminal have mostly been meek and quiet about the fact that the President they supported has been following in George Bush's footsteps.
His seven questions for liberals:
1) Isn't this is a rush to war?
2) Is Obama invading Libya because Gaddafi insulted him?
3) Is this a war for oil?
4) Where are the massive protests?
5) Shouldn't we have tried to talk it out with Gaddafi instead?
6) Aren't we just starting a cycle of violence by bombing Libya?
7) Isn't Barack Obama a chickenhawk?
Excellent questions.
I assume Obama supporters will have lame answers; but the fact is Obama, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, led the country to another war.
JAY LENO: In Wisconsin, a new poll shows that Republican Governor Scott Walker's attack on public employees is making him more and more unpopular with his own constituents. They feel he's attacking his own people, which is not good, 'cause the only other guy doing that right now - Muammar Gaddafi. You don't want to fall in that group.
JAY LENO: Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi went on TV today. He was angry and defiant. Then, he went off the air and no one has seen him since. Kind of like Keith Olbermann.
World leaders like Muammar Gaddafi, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Fidel Castro have expressed their thoughts on NBC and The Tonight Show situation.
CONAN O'BRIEN: Of course, NBC late night, that's the big story right now. I didn't think that the programming changes at NBC would mean very much outside of our country. I thought that this was just a story for America. I was wrong. Incredible coverage around the world. Take a look.
In the first third of a speech that lasted more than 90 minutes, Colonel Qaddafi focused on what he called the inherent unfairness of the United Nations, which gives the five permanent members of the Security Council far more authority than the nations only in the General Assembly. This, Mr. Qaddafi said, was dictatorship, not democracy and, as such, “was terrorism itself.”
“We are not committed to obeying or adhering to resolutions by the Security Council in its composition right now,” he said, adding that the Security Council should be renamed the “Terror Council.” At one point, he even tore the edge of the founding charter of the United Nations he held in his hand, saying he agreed with the document’s preamble but nothing else.
He said the organization’s power dynamic should be reversed — to make the Security Council an instrument designed to “implement the will of the General Assembly.”
...Ali Abdussalam Treki, the Libyan diplomat who now holds the rotating presidency of the General Assembly, introduced him as the “leader of the revolution, president of the African Union, King of Kings of Africa.”
An hour into his address, Colonel Qaddafi began calling for investigations into each of the major wars since the United Nations was founded: the Korean War, the war over the Suez Canal, the Vietnam War and the ongoing war in Iraq, which he called “the mother of all evils.”
The Afghan war, too, he said, should be investigated for possible prosecution. At times, Colonel Qaddafi veered into conspiracy, saying, for example, that the H1N1 influenza virus, also called swine flu, might be a military or corporate weapon that got out of a lab, and he intimated that an Israeli hand was behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said, should be solved by the creation of a single state, which Mr. Qaddafi called Isratine, but Mr. Qaddafi stressed it was wrong to infer that Arabs hate the Jews. “You are the ones who burned them, not us. You expelled them,” he said, referring apparently to European nations.
For Mr. Obama personally, however, he had only warm words, calling on the collected nations to welcome “our son” on the occasion of his first United Nations appearance. “We are content and happy if Obama can stay forever as the president of America,” he said, and added that he feared America would return to its old ways after the end of Mr. Obama’s term.
In a rambling speech that lasted more than 90 minutes, Qaddafi tried to rip in two a pocket-sized copy of the UN Charter, charging that the council’s existence violated the provision that all UN members be treated equally. He called for power to go to the General Assembly, whose rotating presidency this year is held by Libyan diplomat Ali Treki.
“The Security Council since its establishment did not provide us with security but on the contrary provides us with terror and sanctions,” he said. “It was used against us. It should not be called a security council, it should be called a terror council.”
... “Sixty-five wars broke out after the establishment of the UN and the Security Council, and the victims are millions more than the victims of World War II,” he said. “Were these wars in the interest of all of us? No, they were in the interest of one country or three countries or four countries.”
Turning to the heads of state gathered in the assembly chamber, Qaddafi said, “You are just like speakers on Hyde Park Corner” in London. “You make a speech and then disappear.”
... “The General Assembly is the parliament of the world, the master of the world, and no one should object,” he said.
...The Libyan leader said he is proud of Barack Obama’s election to the U.S. presidency as a “son of Africa” and called him “a glimmer in the dark.” He praised Obama’s call for a reduction in nuclear weapons.
...Turning to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, just days after Obama urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to build two states living side-by-side in peace, Qaddafi said a two-state solution was “not practicable.”
“The solution is an Arab state without religious fanaticism,” he said. “Look at Palestinian youth, look at Israeli youth -- they want peace and want to live in one state.”
...At one point, Qaddafi noted that many world leaders appeared to have dozed off during his speech, and complained that holding UN sessions in New York caused jet lag. He said he had woken up at 4 a.m. because of the change in time zones.
At another point, Mr. Gadhafi asked why the U.N. is situated in the U.S. and questioned whether it would be better to move the headquarters elsewhere.
"Everyone here today came across the Atlantic or the Pacific, and I ask you, why?" he said. "Is this Jerusalem, or Mecca? All of you have jetlag and are physically tired. Many of you are very tired because your biological mind should be asleep right now. Think about it, why should we continue to meet here in America?"
"We should not have to come to New York," he said.
But Mr. Gadhafi softened his tone when referring to Mr. Obama, saying, "We are happy and proud that a son of Africa is president of the U.S. in a place where blacks could not go in a bus where whites go." He said Mr. Obama was "the beginning of a change."
"Obama is a glimpse in the dark, and I am afraid that we may go back to square one. Can you guarantee how America will governed after Obama?" he asked, looking back at U.N. Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon. "As far as I'm concerned he can stay president of America forever."
Mr. Gadhafi later turned this attention to Iraq.
"The Iraqi war was the mother of all evils," he said. "Why did we invade? This should be investigated. It was a violation of the U.N. charter, without any justification."
He asked why prisoners of war were tried, including Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein. "How is the member of a government and president of a country be sentenced to hang? Who were these people in masks that did this? Did they have the right to do it?"
He said some believed that the executioners were Americans. "We don't the identify of these people. The U.N. has the duty to answer these questions, who implemented the death sentence."
Mr. Gadhafi then rambled further afield, even touching on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He asked who killed the U.S. president and why this hasn't been answered yet. "We know that the Israeli Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald, who had killed the president," he said. "And then this Israeli died. … We have to know how and why this happened, so such things will not be repeated."
Touching on the subject of piracy, Mr. Gadhafi said he had met with pirates in Somalia who have made headlines in the past year for dozens of hijackings of cargo ships.
"These men are not pirates," he said. "We are the pirates. We are all pirates. We went there to their territorial waters, and they are just protecting the food of their children. The solution does not lie in sending military ships to Somalia."
If I were Obama I wouldn't be too pleased with Gaddafi's words of praise.
It's not good to be embraced by a terrorist and conspiracy nut like Gaddafi.
Kenny MacAskill continues to face criticism over his decision to release Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, convicted in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, exploding over Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988, and killing 270 people.
Scottish legislators gathered Monday for an emergency meeting on the government's decision to release the Lockerbie bomber as critics claimed the act could severely damaged relations with the United States.
The government of First Minister Alex Salmond has faced unrelenting criticism from the both the U.S. government and the families of American bombing victims for freeing Abdel Baset al-Megrahi.
The Libyan — the only man convicted of killing 270 people in the 1988 airline bombing — was released last week on compassionate grounds because he is terminally ill with prostate cancer. He has returned to his native Libya.
In a strongly worded letter to the Scottish government, FBI director Robert Mueller said al-Megrahi's release gave comfort to terrorists, while Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said releasing the bomber was "obviously a political decision."
Lawmakers want to question Salmond's minority government about the decision, with some calling for Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to resign. MacAskill has said the decision was his alone, followed all the correct procedures under Scottish law and was not influenced by political considerations.
Some Scottish lawmakers want to distance themselves from the decision by Scotland's nationalist administration, which advocates full independence from Britain.
"Today is about showing the world that Kenny MacAskill did not speak for Scotland in making this decision," said Richard Baker, the Labour Party's Scottish justice spokesman.
Nothing in his experience of life or politics could have prepared Kenny MacAskill for the walk towards that podium last Thursday and I wondered if he would endure the ordeal ahead. Scotland's justice minister, an honest journeyman in the minority part-government of a relatively unimportant country, had nothing beyond a desire to see that natural justice must prevail as he pondered his decision to show compassion to Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi.
This is the man whom Scots justice had found guilty of the biggest terrorist atrocity committed on these islands, the bomb aboard Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. He knew that his decision was being scrutinised on four continents and that his character would be trashed before the hour was spent. Yet he emerged from his trial with his stature increased and Scotland woke up on Friday with its reputation for decency and fairness enhanced.
MacAskill could have washed his hands of this issue and simply had a terminally ill man spend the few remaining days of his life in a Greenock prison cell. Few, beyond the masters of the British petroleum industry, would have demurred. Certainly not Downing Street, whose haunted incumbent would have been praying for such a verdict, and certainly not America whose default position on justice is: "When in doubt, hang them from the neck… especially if they are poor, black and uneducated." In the Arab world, there would have been desultory protests but nothing more. Baghdad, Helmand, Kabul and the West Bank are of far more pressing concern than the final resting place of a man they all wished to forget.
But this unprepossessing minister of justice sought to ignore all the serried interests of the global supermen. Instead, he found refuge in the fundamental principles of a judicial system that has served Scotland soundly for more than 400 years. For 16 years now, our statutes have given us leave to release from prison anyone who is deemed by competent medical authority to have three months or less to live. It was a concession rooted in compassion, pity and forgiveness. Few in the United Kingdom have ever taken issue with it. It is a good and just law. MacAskill simply applied it. In this case, he used it merely to allow a murderer go home to die. Before Megrahi, 23 other prisoners had been shown a similar mercy in Scotland. It was also a decision buttressed by two oncologists and two urologists who provided written documentation that, in their opinions, the Libyan prisoner was in the very last stages of his final agony.
Nor had MacAskill been party to any quid pro quo deal that involved Megrahi dropping his appeal against his original conviction in return for compassionate release. The desired outcome for the Scottish government was for Megrahi to die in a Scottish jail and for his appeal to proceed.
...One senior SNP politician I spoke to last night stated categorically that no deal had been struck with Megrahi: "Politically, the worst option for us was the one chosen by Kenny MacAskill. But it was also the right and proper one and consistent with the principles this nation strives to govern itself by. What no one could have foreseen two years ago was the onset of the prisoner's aggressive prostate cancer and this changed everything."
So did MacAskill do the morally right thing? Was it a selfless act on his part to free Megrahi?
A piece in the Telegraph by Stephen Hough highlights the Christian overtones of MacAskill's words, speaking of "compassion" and "mercy."
However, he uses MacAskill's terminology against him, concluding that MacAskill overstepped his authority, acting unilaterally to grant Megrahi mercy.
Hough writes:
‘Justice’, in practical legal terms, is in the hands of the courts, and I am amazed that one man could make such a sweeping decision to hold or release someone like this; but ‘mercy’ (in MacAskill’s terminology) can only come from God. I dearly hope for unlimited mercy for all people from God, but I think it was misguided and inappropriate for the Justice Secretary to take on that task himself on behalf of those who were so deeply affected personally by that Pan Am plane’s plunge to the ground in 1988.
A piece that was published on the New York Times website on August 20, includes remarks from MacAskill that strike me as profoundly misguided and offensive, and not the least bit compassionate or Christian.
Scotland’s justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, announced that Mr. Megrahi, “convicted in 2001 for the Lockerbie bombing, now terminally ill with prostate cancer, be released on compassionate grounds and allowed to return to Libya to die.”
With his release, Mr. MacAskill said, Mr. Megrahi “now faces a sentence imposed by a higher power.”
“It is one that no court, in any jurisdiction, in any land, could revoke or overrule,” he said. “It is terminal, final and irrevocable. He is going to die.”
I strongly object to MacAskill's assertion that Megrahi's illness is a "sentence imposed by a higher power."
This supposed man of compassion is seriously lacking, in my opinion.
So according to MacAskill, being terminally ill is Megrahi's punishment for his role in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, meted out by God, and that should satisfy those wanting and deserving justice?
What does that suggest? What does that say to all those suffering from dreadful illnesses? That they are being punished by God?
Are we to equate a terminally ill child with Megrahi?
What did the child do that would condemn him or her to "[face] a sentence imposed by a higher power"?
I fail to see any compassion in MacAskill's statement that Megrahi is being punished and justice is being done by virtue of the fact that he's ill, facing a death sentence that he believes is imposed by a higher power.
If MacAskill thinks that terminal illness takes the place of a sentence handed down by a court of law, that it's the ultimate punishment from God, then I think he should explain why those who are innocent, who aren't terrorists, are afflicted with devastating illnesses.
MacAskill's remarks were terribly callous, lacked compassion, and showed no mercy. ___________________
Related:
Here's an interesting piece written by John Bolton, former US ambassador to the United Nations:
Outrage was the uniform American response to Scotland's release last week of Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the man convicted of blowing Pan Am 103 out of the sky over Lockerbie in December, 1988. Two hundred and seventy innocent people died in that act of terrorism, of whom 189 were Americans, many of them students on their way home to celebrate Christmas with their families.
Outrage also greeted the public celebration of Megrahi's arrival in Libya and his warm reception from Muammar Gaddafi. These manifestations of insensitivity only highlight the shamefulness of Britain's fundamental mistake in letting Megrahi go free, regardless of his condition. "Compassion" has no place here. Releasing him to die at home means that he has spent less than two weeks in jail for each of his 270 victims. They never made it home.
The justifiable disgust over Megrahi's release sadly underlines what amounts to a spectacular failure of American diplomacy. "Obamamania" overseas is a dominant theme of the media, endlessly recounting how the US position in the world has improved since President Bush's departure. "Engagement" with friend and adversary alike is the Obama administration's hallmark, with diplomatic advances expected to flow like wine.
So what happened? The state department said on Friday that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton worked "for weeks and months" to persuade Britain not to release the murderer. Both Washington and London all but begged Gaddafi not to hold public celebrations on Megrahi's arrival in Tripoli. Yet Britain, the other half of the "special relationship", ignored Clinton's efforts, as did Libya, which only recently resumed full diplomatic relations with America.
This is effective US diplomacy? This is one of the tangible benefits of Obamamania? The purported "decision" by Scotland (under whose laws America, Britain and Libya agreed Megrahi would be tried) was almost surely taken at the behest of Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Government. Even worse, Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam, and Lord Trefgarne, president of the Libyan-British Business Council, have both essentially confirmed that Megrahi's release was intended to facilitate enhanced commercial relationships between Britain and Libya. Gaddafi said the release "will be positively reflected for sure in all areas of co-operation between the two countries". Is there any doubt of his meaning?
Cabinet protestations to the contrary are increasingly hollow, as inconvenient new evidence, such as Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis's letter to Scotland's justice secretary, demonstrates. For sure, there was no "deal" between Brown and Gaddafi or their underlings, no signed contract, no express quid pro quo between Megrahi's release and business for Britain. In reality, of course, that is not the way it's done. All denials of such an explicit transaction are probably "the truth", but not the whole truth. Sequencing the release and the subsequent contracts was designed to enhance official deniability, but the linkage is palpable to all concerned.
Expert Cabinet spin cannot hide the emerging reality. Some say Brown listened to those British victims' families who still doubt Megrahi's guilt. Why does he have so little faith in Scottish justice? And if Scotland (birthplace of two of my grandparents) can't get mass terrorism right, what does that tell foreigners thinking about visiting?
In fact, this is merely the latest example of a fundamentally flawed American approach to international terrorism, begun in the Clinton administration. Although rejected by the Bush administration in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the Clinton philosophy that terrorism was simply a law-enforcement matter is again in vogue in full force under President Obama. Both the first President Bush and President Clinton should have treated the destruction of Pan Am 103 as an attack on the US and responded accordingly. This mass murder was not simply a bank robbery writ large; it was an act of state aggression almost surely directed by Libya's government, then, as now, in Gaddafi's hands.
Bolton makes some legitimate points about Obama-mania, "'engagement' with friend and adversary alike," and treating terrorism as a law enforcement matter.
"And my job is to shut other white people down when they want to interrupt."
"We have to, at the DNC, provide training. We have to teach them how to communicate, how to be sensitive, and how to shut their mouths if they're white."
"Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners, and if we kick 'em all out, you'll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts."
"When I would deny that there was a significant racist component in some of the politics on our side, it was because the people I hung out with were certainly not. When suddenly, this rock is turned over, there is this—'Oh shit, did I not see that?'"
----------------------------
"In any other scenario, Hillary Clinton's lying about her emails, and her pay-for-play relationship with the Clinton Foundation would be disqualifying issues. The only reason they're not disqualifying is because Donald Trump is a fundamentally more repellent, dishonest figure."
"I made a mistake in recalling the events of twelve years ago... I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by RPG fire. I was instead in a following aircraft."
"I would not look to the U.S. Constitution, if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012. I might look at the constitution of South Africa. That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights, had an independent judiciary. It really is, I think, a great piece of work that was done."
"The death of Andrew Breitbart disproves the adage that only the good die young."
--JULIAN BOND
"The National Institute of Health has said that it is a danger to women's health and safety of their families that for 30 years to be exposed to the prospects of pregnancy."
"Why did- Couldn't the President have said at that moment, way back in December of last year, 'no game playing. No hostage-taking. No terrorizing this country with the debt ceiling. I'm not going to negotiate with you guys. You can't play it that way.' Could he have done that?"
"I remember distinctly an image of--we were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at [Obama's] pant leg and his perfectly creased pant, and I'm thinking, a) he's going to be president and b) he'll be a very good president."
--DAVID BROOKS
"I feel like calling her back and smackin' her around."
"[I]f you go back to the year 2000, when we had an obvious disaster and - and saw that our voting process needed refinement, and we did that in the America Votes Act and made sure that we could iron out those kinks, now you have the Republicans, who want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws and literally - and very transparently - block access to the polls to voters who are more likely to vote Democratic candidates than Republican candidates. And it's nothing short of that blatant."
--DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ
"This is probably one of the worst times we've seen because the numbers of people elected to Congress. I went through this as co-chair of the arts caucus. In '94 people were elected simply to come here to kill the National Endowment for the Arts. Now they’re here to kill women."
"The protesters have proven today that they‘re not going away. It was a pretty rough night last night. You can imagine if people said, well, we just can‘t fight the power. Instead, this morning, they came by tens, by hundreds, by thousands. By midday today, it was easily more than 10,000, perhaps as many as 15,000 people on the square here in Madison. Not organized by anyone, just grassroots citizens who came out just like the Minutemen in 1776."
--JOHN NICHOLS
"They're sitting on the money, they're using it for their own -- they're putting it someplace else with no interest in helping you with your life, with that money. We've allowed them to take that. That's not theirs, that's a national resource, that's ours. We all have this -- we all benefit from this or we all suffer as a result of not having it. I think we need to go back to taxing these people at the proper rates."
"Why don't we just raise the taxes and let these folks have their collective bargaining, have their union representation and go back to their jobs? Raise the taxes on the wealthy."
"So I would urge my Republican colleagues, no matter how strongly they feel -- you know, we have three branches of government. We have a House. We have a Senate. We have a president. And all three of us are going to have to come together and give some, but it is playing with fire to risk the shutting down of the government."
"I'm Rebecca Kleefisch. I performed fellatio on all the talk show hosts in Milwaukee. And they endorsed me and that's how I became lieutenant governor."
"[Military leaders] tell us that childhood obesity isn’t just a public health issue; they tell us that it is not just an economic threat -- it is a national security threat as well."
"[Obama] has to realize that Mitch McConnell has virtually said so that politically he wants to cut out his heart and throw his liver to the dogs."
--DAN RATHER
"And the instructions are not to improvise a comedy sketch, but to elect a group of unqualified, unstable individuals who will do what they are told, in exchange for money and power, and march this nation as far backward as they can get, backward to Jim Crow, or backward to the breadlines of the '30s, or backward to hanging union organizers, or backward to the trusts and the robber barons.
"Result: the Tea Party. Vote backward, vote Tea Party. And if you are somehow indifferent to what is planned for next Tuesday, it is nothing short of an attempted use of democracy to end this democracy."
"I gotta wonder when people are gonna start wearing uniforms. I mean they've got an army out there in Alaska of militia people. You've got these guys going around acting like street thugs. I mean it isn't far from what we saw in the thirties, where all of a sudden, political parties started showing up in uniform."
"[Sharron Angle] is a moron on top of being evil...
I'd like to see her do this ad in the South Bronx. Come here, bitch. Come to New York and do it. I'm not praying for her. She's going to hell. She's going to hell, this bitch."
"So people have been hurting and I understand that. And it doesn't give them comfort or solace for me to tell them, you know, but for me, we'd be in a worldwide depression."
"And to play Dick Cheney, all I had to do was find my Dick Cheney. And you can find all the villainy in the world in your own heart, and that's what an actor's job is. I always say to kids, inside you is Hitler and Jesus. And you got to find the appropriate person and bring them out."
"Because I live in the District of Columbia which is so predominantly Democratic, I am a registered Democrat. But I am an avowed neutral. And to put that into practice, I take my young daughter into the voting booth and she votes for me. She's now 14. We've been doing this since she was about age 4. She's now quite informed."
"Sarah Palin's an idiot. Come on. This is a remarkably, stunningly, jaw-droppingly incompetent and mean woman."
"The Democrats may have moved into the center, but the Republicans have moved into a mental institution."
--AARON SORKIN
"Perhaps the greatest threat of all is the undermining of our Constitution and the systematic attack against the inalienable rights of the citizens of this nation, rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution. At the vanguard of this insidious attack is the Tea Party. This band of misguided citizens is moving perilously close to achieving villainous ends."
"Ah, the Tea Party, the nativist bed-wetters who somehow control our national dialogue. Yes, I call them the Pee Party, Jay, because they're always peeing in their pants about something. They're just, they're afraid of a mosque being built in New York. They're afraid of guns. You know, they think Obama, who like every other pussy Democrat has never said a single word about gun control, but they are very sure that he and his Negro army are coming after their guns.
You know what? If you think that he's coming after your guns, you need to get out of your chat room and have your house tested for lead. He's not coming after your guns or your Bible or your fishing pole or your chewing tobacco."
"That's a trade-off society is making because of very, very high medical costs, and a lack of willingness to say, you know, is spending a million dollars on that last three months of life for that patient, would it be better not to lay off those ten teachers and to make that trade-off in medical costs. But that;s called the 'Death Panel' and you're not supposed to have that discussion."
"[If Rush Limbaugh suffered a heart attack in my presence, I would] laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out. I never knew I had this much hate in me. But he deserves it."
--SARAH SPITZ
"You want freedom, you going to have to kill some crackers. You going to have to kill some of their babies."
"If this was Texas, which is the state that, that is directly on the border with Mexico, and they were calling for a measure like this, saying that they had a major issue with, you know, with undocumented people flooding their borders, I would say I would have to look twice at this.
"But this is a state that is a ways removed from the border. And, um, it just, it doesn't make sense to me that when you google this subject, if you put in 'Arizona S.B. 1070,' that you see a picture of the governor of Arizona meeting with President Obama in May of 2010. If you have direct linkage to the president, there are already National Guard troops on the border in Arizona."
"Tell [the Jews] to get the hell out of Palestine. Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land. It's not German. It's not Poland. [The Jews] can go home. Poland. Germany."
--HELEN THOMAS
"After the last eight years, it's good to have a president that knows what a library is."
--PAUL McCARTNEY
"By the way, I just want to point out I'm wearing my splash shield because I was told I was going to be in the splash zone (during Harry Smith's colonoscopy on live TV)."
--KATIE COURIC
"And that Word is, we have to give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the values of the Word."
----------------------------
"Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance or that people could start a business and be entrepreneurial and take risk, but not job loss because of a child with asthma or someone in the family is bipolar—you name it, any condition — is job-locking."
--NANCY PELOSI
"Back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as 'yellow, slant-eyed dogs' that believed in different gods. They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what's going on today?"
--TOM HANKS
"The 'White Right' is trying to set Barack up to be assassinated.... Here are Christians praying for God to kill Barack Obama."
--LOUIS FARRAKHAN
"I refuse to accept the notion that the United States of America is not going to lead the world economically throughout the 20th Century."
--JOE BIDEN
"Obama's critics keep blasting him for Chicago-style politics. So, fine. Channel your inner Al Capone and go gangsta against your foes. Let 'em know that if they aren't with you, they are against you, and will pay the price."
--ROLAND MARTIN
"Martha Coakley is running to fill the rest of Ted Kennedy's term, and her opponent is a far-right tea-bagger Republican."
--CHUCK SCHUMER
"I tell you what, if I lived in Massachusetts, I'd try to vote ten times. I don't know if they'd let me or not, but I'd try to. Yeah, that's right, I'd cheat to keep these bastards out. I would. 'Cause that's exactly what they are."
--ED SCHULTZ
"We also see how revved up the tea baggers are at the thought of hijacking health care reform and every chance we have at making progress in Washington."
--JOHN KERRY
"A few years ago, this guy (Obama) would have been getting us coffee."
--BILL CLINTON
"I didn't realize I had written a column defending Roman Polanski and minimized his crime - are you sure it was me? I mean, I? There is, apparently, more to this crime than it would seem, and it may sound like a hollow defense, but in Hollywood I am not sure a 13-year-old is really a 13-year-old."
--TOM SHALES
"Joe Wilson yelled 'You lie!' at a president who didn't. But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!"
--MAUREEN DOWD
"One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game... During the 7th inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez."
--DAVID LETTERMAN
"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life."
--SONIA SOTOMAYOR
"We all considered sexual abuse of minors as a moral evil, but had no understanding of its criminal nature."
--REMBERT WEAKLAND, Archbishop of Milwaukee 1977- 2002
"You know, you might want to look into this, [President Obama], because I think maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker, but he was so strung out on Oxycontin he missed his flight."
"Rush Limbaugh -- 'I hope the country fails.' I hope his kidneys fail."
----------------------------
"[Obama] told me I did a great job. The first lady said the same thing. I got a 'well done' from the president, I'm on cloud nine."
--WANDA SYKES
"Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less."
--COLIN POWELL
"[Tea Party goers are] just a bunch of wimpy, whiny, weasels who don't love their country."
--PAUL BEGALA
"I wouldn't want [gay marriage] to go to the United States Supreme Court now because that homophobe Antonin Scalia has too many votes on this current court."
--BARNEY FRANK
"Going forward, my mind will be open to every solution -- except one. We should not -- we must not -- and I will not -- raise taxes."
--JIM DOYLE, Liar
"He's a terrorist. Rush Limbaugh is a terrorist."
--JOY BEHAR
"You know, I just want to say to her (Sarah Palin), just very quickly...F--- you."
--JON STEWART
"Should I be worried about being a slave and being returned to slavery?"
--WHOOPI GOLDBERG
"I also believe that America is the greatest sin against God."
--FR. MICHAEL PFLEGER
"Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken. Today the reason for the Zionist regime's existence is questioned, and this regime is on its way to annihilation."
--MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD
"We'll be eight degrees hotter in ten, not ten but 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals."
--TED TURNER
"Look, [Mitt] Romney comes from a religion founded by a criminal who was anti-American, pro-slavery, and a rapist. And he comes from that lineage and says, 'I respect this religion fully.'"
--LAWRENCE O'DONNELL
"Mexico does not end at its borders... Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico."
--FELIPE CALDERON
"The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don't say, 'Well, I read a science fiction novel that told me it's not a problem.' If the crib's on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame retardant."
--AL GORE
"Don't fear the terrorists. They're mothers and fathers."
--ROSIE O'DONNELL
"Is America ready for a black president? Well, I say we just had a retarded one. When did being black become a bigger deterrent than being retarded?"
--CHRIS ROCK
"Shut the f--- up! Shut up if you can't take a joke [about President Bush]!"
--BARBRA STREISAND
"Right, oh, yeah, Happy 9/11! Celebrate the day, right?"
--JAMES BROLIN, Mr. Barbra Streisand
"I think President Bush very well may have signed an authorization for the 9/11 attacks."
--KEVIN BARRETT, UW-MADISON Lecturer
"I said what I said. I am not guilty."
--SADDAM HUSSEIN
"Terri will not be starved to death. Her nutrition and hydration will be taken away."
--MICHAEL SCHIAVO
"On the eve of the election last month my wife Judith and I were driving home late in the afternoon and turned on the radio for the traffic and weather. What we instantly got was a freak show of political pornography: lies, distortions, and half-truths -- half-truths being perhaps the blackest of all lies. "
--BILL MOYERS
"I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for."
--HOWARD DEAN
"The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents' or 'terrorists' or 'The Enemy.' They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win."
--MICHAEL MOORE
"And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the--of--the historical customs, religious customs."
"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president."
--HILLARY CLINTON
"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."
--BILL CLINTON
"And let me tell you something -- for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment."
--MICHELLE OBAMA
"If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a Jew, uh, as a janitor, makes me a warrior for the working class, I wear that with a badge of honor."
"[F]or most of my lifetime, the United States was such a dominant economic power, we were such a large market, our industry, our technology, our manufacturing was so significant that we always met the rest of the world economically on our terms. And now, because of the incredible rise of India and China and Brazil and other countries, the United States remains the largest economic and the largest market but there’s real competition out there. And that's potentially healthy. It makes -- Michelle was saying earlier I like tough questions because it keeps me on my toes. Well, this will keep America on its toes."
----------------------------
"If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, 'We're gonna PUNISH OUR ENEMIES and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,' if they don't see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it's gonna be harder and that's why I think it's so important that people focus on voting on November 2."
----------------------------
"We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but THEY GOTTA SIT IN BACK."
----------------------------
"We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever... we absorbed it and we are stronger."
"We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers so I know whose ass to kick."
----------------------------
"We're not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that's fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money. But, you know, part of the American way is, you know, you can just keep on making it if you’re providing a good product or you're providing good service. We don't want people to stop fulfilling the core responsibilities of the financial system to help grow the economy."
"It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure."
----------------------------
"But I -- I think that the most important thing for the public to understand is, we're not handling any of these cases any different than the Bush administration handled them all through 9/11."
----------------------------
"One such translator was an American of Haitian descent, representative of the extraordinary work that our men and women in uniform do all around the world -- Navy CORPSE-MAN Christian [sic] Brossard. And lying on a gurney aboard the USNS Comfort, a woman asked Christopher: 'Where do you come from? What country? After my operation,' she said, 'I will pray for that country.' And in Creole, CORPSE-MAN Brossard responded, 'Etazini.' The United States of America."
----------------------------
"I hear that Dr. Joe Medicine Crow was around, and so I want to give a shout-out to that Congressional Medal of Honor winner. It's good to see you."
"I am going to teach [my daughters] first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."
----------------------------
"The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice, savings, and INEFFICIENCIES to our health care system."
----------------------------
"Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it."
--BARACK OBAMA
NOTEWORTHY QUOTATIONS
"In a word, freedom is ever new. It is a challenge held out to each generation, and it must constantly be won over for the cause of good.... [A] democracy without values can lose its very soul."
--POPE BENEDICT XVI
"When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law engraved in the hearts of men and women, when it does not listen to the voice of conscience, it turns against humanity and society."
--POPE JOHN PAUL II
"We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop."
--MOTHER TERESA
"To promote choice for its own sake is more akin to self-indulgence than self-determination. It is the philosophy of a pre-schooler in a candy shop."
--BRIAN POLLARD, M.D.
"The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people."
--MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
"The house we hope to build is not for my generation but for yours. It is your future that matters. And I hope that when you are my age, you will be able to say as I have been able to say: We lived in freedom. We lived lives that were a statement, not an apology."
--RONALD REAGAN
"Liberalism is the philosophy of the stupid."
--MARK LEVIN
"We are Warriors forever."
--BO ELLIS
"I know how much you're supposed to enjoy every sandwich, you know."
