Category: Verbatim
Repost – Bush Advisor: ‘We’re an Empire Now’
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
– Unnamed Bush advisor to writer Ron Suskind, as reported in a October 2004 New York Times Magazine article
Murrow: ‘We Are Not Descended from Fearful Men’
“We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep into our own history and our doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular.
“This is no time for men who oppose Senator [Joe] McCarthy’s methods to keep silent. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result.”
— Edward R. Murrow, 1954
Reagan Advisor Lyn Nofziger Criticizes Current ‘Corrupt’ Republicans
Off the reservation: Lyn Nofziger has been a fixture in Republican Party politics since the 1960’s. He worked on Ronald Reagan’s first campaign for governor of California, and briefly in the Reagan White House. He also ran campaigns for Pat Buchanan and Steve Forbes.
But now Nofziger is speaking out – in the ultra-rightwing Washington Times (www.washtimes.com) – on the current state of affairs in the GOP, and what he has to say is not pretty:
On the current leadership of the Republican Party:
“They’ve been in power too long … Any time you put any political party in power for too long, it becomes corrupt. It loses its focus. It forgets why it came there.”
On the “conservative” label:
“‘Conservative’ is a word that doesn’t mean anything. It can mean what you want it to mean … To me, conservative means believing in a minimum amount of government and a maximum amount of freedom — and keeping government out of people’s lives and business — and leaving people alone … I recognize you have to have national defense and have to finance the government. But government does not have to be the be-all and end-all.”
On Ronald Reagan:
“Our problem is we are trying to make a saint out of a man who certainly wasn’t perfect. But he was a unique president. He believed in three things: God, the American people and himself. And that’s kind of unique.”
On Bush family consigliere James Baker:
“You [could] split [the Reagan] senior staff into two parties: the Reagan people and the Baker people … [Baker is] a guy who’s arrogant, who thought he knew better than the president … I don’t think he’s an honorable man. And you can quote me.”
On Pat Buchanan:
“A friend of mine. But I don’t think Pat is as libertarian as I am. I don’t think he wants more government; he just wants different government. … He’s a protectionist.”
On the neo-conservative efforts to spread democracy by force:
“I’m not a great believer in spreading democracy, because I don’t think you can spread democracy. People have to want it themselves.”
