Quotes of the Morning

“In Omaha on Friday, a divorced single mother named Mary Mornin tells the president, ‘I have one child, Robbie, who is mentally challenged, and I have two daughters.’ ‘Fantastic,’ the president exclaims, and he tells her she has ‘the hardest job in America, being a single mom.’
Later, the 57-year old Mornin tells Bush that she works three jobs, which the president deems ’uniquely American’ and ‘fantastic.’ He asks her if she gets any sleep.”
-Washington Post, February 6, 2005

“Ok, the ‘fantastic’ thing when talking about a mentally challenged child I’ll let fly.. but the ‘uniquely American’ bit? Do we really want single mothers working three jobs to be a uniquely American thing? And do you really think that it’s fantastic??”
-Skippy

“Bush will propose spending $2.5 trillion in the budget year that begins Oct. 1. For the current year, he is estimating the budget deficit will reach a record $427 billion. That compares with last year’s $412 billion deficit and is the third straight year the Bush administration will have set, in dollar terms, a deficit high.
[…]
The five-year projections in the budget will show the deficit declining to about $230 billion in 2009, when a new president takes office.
Those projections do not take into account some big-ticket items: the military costs incurred in Iraq and Afghanistan, the price of making Bush’s first term tax cuts permanent, or the transition costs for his No. 1 domestic priority, overhauling Social Security.”
-Associated Press, February 7, 2005

“So the decline in the deficit won’t include any of the more expensive items that Bush is pushing to have. Great.”
-Skippy

"Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you, I like brawling . . . You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."
-Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, USMC, February 1, 2005

"’While I understand that some people may take issue with the comments made by him, I also know he intended to reflect the unfortunate and harsh realities of war,’ [Marine Corp Commandant Mike] Hagee said. ‘Lt. Gen. Mattis often speaks with a great deal of candor.’ Hagee also praised Mattis, calling him ‘one of this country's bravest and most experienced military leaders.’"
Associated Press, February 3, 2005

“Gen. Corman: Walt Kurtz was one of the most outstanding officers this country has ever produced. He was brilliant and outstanding in every way. And he was a good man, too. A humanitarian man, a man of wit, of humor. He joined the Special Forces. But after that his ideas, his methods, became . . . unsound.
You see Willard, in this war, things get confused out there: power, ideals, the old morality, and practical military necessity. Out there with these natives it must be a temptation to be god. Because there's a conflict in every human heart between the rational and the irrational, between good and evil. The good does not always triumph. Sometimes the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. Every man has a breaking point. You and I have. Walter Kurtz has reached his. And very obviously, he has gone insane.
Willard: Yes sir, very much so sir. Obviously insane.”
-Apocalypse Now