“I don’t consider him a particularly reliable source of information.”
- Hillary Clinton on Dick Cheney
Washington Post has more on the “Return of Hillary Clinton“
It wasn’t the most stirring defense, but a defense it was, and it served as a reminder of Clinton’s relatively low-profile in the first months of her tenure. To an extent, that [...]

“Venezuela is a country whose defense budget is probably 1/600th of the United States’. They own Citgo. It’s unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States. I don’t think anybody can find any evidence that [...]

“I just wish everyone would take a step back from this extremist brink. It can’t lead anywhere good. At best, it will bring the right-wing blogosphere into disrepute, and at the worst it could lead to violence if you encourage these real nuts out there.”
- Charles Johnson, founder and lead blogger at Little Green Footballs
Gee, [...]

[...] imagine if an American operative out of uniform were captured by the Iranians tomorrow. Imagine he were put into a coffin for hours with no light and barely enough air to breathe, imagine if he were then removed and smashed against a plywood wall by a towel tied around his neck thirty times, imagine [...]

“Texas is a unique place. When we came into the union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that.”
- Texas Governor Rick Perry hinting at secession at a Tea Party rally today
And here’s the audio…

First off, he’s wrong. Texas never had an option [...]

“”While the Obama team regularly likes to blame the Bush administration for the economic problems it’s dealing with on a daily — if not hourly — basis, Obama would not have had such a great, arguably historic, debut on the world stage without Bush.”
- MSNBC’s First Read
Yes, I’m sure Obama loves that he has the [...]

“The time has come for both left and right in this country to rediscover what philosophers call the “principle of charity” which asserts that a discussant’s argument should be interpreted in the way most compatible with the assumption that they are reasonable and well-intentioned.”
- Jason Arvak in his post “On Lowering The Partisan Heat.
Here’s more…
[...]

“Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn’t buying that. My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”
- Obama cautioning bank executives on justifying high salaries in a recent private meeting
I think it’s pretty clear that the bank executives simply don’t get how angry folks are. And that’s understandable. [...]

“If you want to be angry about something, get pissed at a media culture that goes beserk about bonuses one week and forgets all about them the next. And be worried, quite worried, about a society for whom anger is a form of entertainment.”
- Joe Klein in his latest column
Here’s the thing, we’re all guilty [...]

“This is a bit of an inside baseball observation, but it’s becoming clear that the columnist with the best access to the White House is, improbably, David Brooks.”
- Ezra Klein in The American Prospect
Here’s more…
In itself, that’s not abnormal. Administrations often choose themselves a favored columnist to bless with access and exclusives. But this is [...]

“We don’t believe it makes sense to significantly subsidize the production and use of sources of energy (like oil and gas) that are dramatically going to add to our climate change (problem). We don’t think that’s good economic policy and we think changing those incentives is good for the country.”
- Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner talking [...]

“We are in the midst of a phase of history in which nations will be redefined and their futures fundamentally altered.”
- Rupert Murdoch talks about the current state of the global economy in an internal memo
Anybody willing to bet against Murdoch’s prediction?
And do you think these futures will be better or worse?
Discuss.

“There is no such thing as a neoconservative foreign policy.”
- Richard Perle talking to a gathering sponsored by National Interest magazine.
WTF?!
Dana Milbank digs through this nonsense…
So what about the 1996 report he co-authored that is widely seen as the cornerstone of neoconservative foreign policy? “My name was on it because I signed up for the [...]

“It may be necessary to temporarily nationalise some banks in order to facilitate a swift and orderly restructuring. I understand that once in a hundred years this is what you do.”
- Alan Greenspan in an interview with Financial Times
Here’s more…
Mr Greenspan’s comments capped a frenetic day in which policymakers across the political spectrum appeared to [...]

“Nobody is going to put fresh capital into the banking business when your major competitor is going to be continuously bailed out by the United States government with more and more money.”
- Rusty Cloutier, President/CEO of MidSouth Bank
So there’s that.
And then I keep hearing the word “nationalization” being bandied about by leading economists. However, just [...]

“So the stimulus was a political gamble for the White House. But ask yourself what you’d rather inherit: a booming economy that could go nowhere but down, or a struggling economy that could — and we stress “could” — go nowhere but up by 2010?”
- MSNBC’s First Read on the stimulus package
Here are their winners [...]

“When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry…
“The United States needs to be not so much loved as it needs to [...]

“He understands economics. He’s a very smart guy. He’s a cool rational-type thinker. He will work with the right kind of people. So you’ve got the right person in the operating room, but it doesn’t mean the patient is going to leave the hospital tomorrow.”
- Warren Buffett on appropriate expectations of Obama’s economic plans.
That’s from [...]

“Terrorism is a deadly tactic, not an institution or an ideology.”
- British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on the limits of the phrase “War on Terror”
Here’s more…
The foreign secretary wrote that since 9/11 the phrase “war on terror” had “defined the terrain” when it came to tackling terrorism and that although it had merit, “ultimately, the [...]

“Clearly, putting a “mission accomplished” on a aircraft carrier was a mistake. It sent the wrong message. We were trying to say something differently, but, nevertheless, it conveyed a different message.”
- George W. Bush today in his final press conference.
Here’s more…
You don’t — you don’t get to have information after you’ve made the decision. That’s [...]