Category: Verbatim

Verbatim

Buck Banks

I had learned a few things on the campaign already, and knew that change always brought complications and chaos and sometimes a little entertainment. Drama was inevitable on a campaign and created almost out of thin air. Tempers were always flying, and feelings were always being hurt. There was no question that a running mate would add to the confusion and upset. There would be less time for fun. But I couldn’t have predicted just how serious it was going to get.

— Meghan McCain, daughter of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), on Sarah Palin’s contributions to the losing presidential campaign from her new book, “Dirty Sexy Politics,” which will no doubt sell well because it has “sexy” and “politics” in the title.

Verbatim

Buck Banks

If you get (permission), you go and march. If you don’t — you have no right to. Go without permission, and you will be hit on the head with batons. That’s all there is to it.

— Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, quoted by Reuters, defending a recent crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

Verbatim

Buck Banks

He is a super-smart man, but he doesn’t know anything about commitment to marriage. He’s the last person I’d vote for for president of the United States. His life indicates he does not have a commitment to the character traits necessary to be a great president.

— Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), quoted in Tulsa World, poo-pooing the idea of Newt Gingrich running for president.

Verbatim

Buck Banks

I don’t have to say I’m going to caucus with the Democrats or the Republicans.

— Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (I), in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union, dodging the question of which of the two major political parties he would caucus with if elected to the U.S. Senate.

Verbatim

Pensito Editors

Permits should not be granted to build even one more mosque in the United States of America, let alone the monstrosity planned for ground zero. This is for one simple reason: each Islamic mosque is dedicated to the overthrow of the American government.

– Bryan Fischer, a blogger for the right-wing hate group, American Family Association, which has raised millions of dollars over the years by stoking hatred of gays among its Christian-extremist donor pool — but with acceptance of gay rights rising in the polls and the multi-million dollar budgets of AFA’s anti-gay competitor groups shrinking to the point that employees are being laid off, Fischer’s attack on Muslims may signal that AFA will add Islamic hatred to its fundraising appeals.

Verbatim

Trish

This is obviously scaring white people. What they have done is essentially try to put off-limits any parts of the city where these main tea partiers believe you might be able to encounter, dare I say, black people.

–– Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson on MSNBC, describing a post by tea bagger Bruce Majors, which Majors said was intended as informational to participants in Glenn Beck’s “Million Moron” rally. The post listed subway lines and neighborhoods to avoid (diverse ones), and warned that most cab drivers are Arab or African. It also included a map showing the “safe” areas, which were mainly around the Washington Mall. City leaders countered that millions of tourists visit happily every year, and that Majors is out of touch with the times, since many of the areas he said to avoid are the hippest and trendiest.

Martin Luther King is the Farthest Thing from Glenn Beck’s Mind

Trish

It was not my intention to select 8-28 because of the Martin Luther King tie. It is the day he made that speech. I had no idea until I announced it.

— Glenn Beck, talk radio and FOX News personality, stating the obvious. No one doubts that the date of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was outside Beck’s frame of reference when he planned his “Restoring Honor” tea bagger rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial, site of King’s world-changing speech.