Quotes of the Morning: Its All in the Timing

“Let it never be said that I am too proud to admit when I am wrong.. Yesterday I was talking about Senator Joseph Lieberman, the loser in the recent Democratic primary election in Connecticut. I was critical of Senator Lieberman running as an independent in the general election because I believed that he would split the Democrat vote, and I noted that the Republicans, like Dick Cheney, were supporting him with statements like this…”
-Skippy

“The attacks came in searing remarks from, among others, Ken Mehlman, the chairman of the Republican National Committee and Vice President Dick Cheney, who went so far as to suggest that the ouster of Mr. Lieberman might encourage ‘al Qaeda types.’
’It’s an unfortunate development, I think, from the standpoint of the Democratic Party, to see a man like Lieberman pushed aside because of his willingness to support an aggressive posture in terms of our national security strategy,’ Mr. Cheney said in a telephone interview with news service reporters.
[…]
Mr. Cheney offered warm praise for Mr. Lieberman, who was his opponent for vice president in 2000, though he said he did not want his remarks to be construed as an endorsement of Mr. Lieberman.
He cast Mr. Lieberman’s loss in ominous terms, suggesting that it would hearten American terrorist enemies. Terrorists, he said, are ‘betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task.’”
-New York Times, August 10, 2006

“Well I’ve changed my mind. Judging from statements like this one…”
-Skippy

“Senator Joseph I. Lieberman seized on the terror arrests in Britain today to attack his Democratic rival, Ned Lamont, saying that Mr. Lamont’s goals for ending the war in Iraq would constitute a ‘victory’ for extremists, including those accused of plotting to blow up airliners traveling between Britain and the United States.
‘If we just pick up like Ned Lamont wants us to do, get out by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England,’ Mr. Lieberman said at a campaign event at lunchtime in Waterbury, Conn. ‘It will strengthen them and they will strike again.’”
-New York Times, August 10, 2006

“…I am now convinced that Senator Lieberman may actually end up splitting the Republican vote. Heck, he’s more Republican than most of the Republicans out there, and far, far too far to the right to be a legitimate concern to the Democratic party. Look out neo-cons, Joltin’ Joe is coming for your job.
Meanwhile, in the war that Lieberman refuses to contemplate leaving…”
-Skippy

“A suicide bomber blew himself up Thursday among pilgrims outside Iraq's holiest Shiite shrine, killing 35 people and wounding 122. A radical Sunni group claimed it carried out the attack in the southern city of Najaf, warning Shiites they are not safe even ‘deep in your regions.’
At least 37 other people were killed or found dead Thursday elsewhere in Iraq, police said. They included five civilians who died when a mortar shell struck a cafe in a Shiite Muslim area of north Baghdad.”
-Associated Press, August 10, 2006

“Figures compiled by the city morgue indicated Wednesday that the number of killings in the Iraqi capital reached a new high last month, and the U.S. military said a new effort to bring security to Baghdad will succeed only if Iraqis ‘want it to work.’
The Baghdad morgue took in 1,815 bodies during July, news services quoted the facility's assistant manager, Abdul Razzaq al-Obeidi, as saying. The previous month's tally was 1,595. Obeidi estimated that as many as 90 percent of the total died violent deaths.”
-Washington Post, August 10, 2006

“Thank Goddess there was a terrorist threat to make us all realize that we aren’t safe and that we need the Administration to keep us safe. Darn good timing at a moment when it looked like the pro-peace side of the nation (polling at about 60% of the people out there) might just be winning.”
-Skippy

“The London conspiracy is ‘a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation,’ the president said on a day trip to Wisconsin.”
-AFP, August 10, 2006

“As a side note.. What the heck is an Islamic fascist? I mean, I know that calling people fascists is the new hipness, but one of the defining aspects of fascism is a belief in the State over all. Nationalism is vital to the concept, and I don’t think that anyone has seriously proposed that the people who are fighting us are doing it for nationalistic reasons. I now return you to your news article already in progress..”
-Skippy

‘It is a mistake to believe there is no threat to the United States of America,’ he said. ‘We've taken a lot of measures to protect the American people. But obviously we still aren't completely safe.’
His remarks came a day after the White House orchestrated an exceptionally aggressive campaign to tar opposition Democrats as weak on terrorism, knowing what Democrats didn't: News of the plot could soon break.
Vice President Dick Cheney and White House spokesman Tony Snow had argued that Democrats wanted to raise what Snow called ‘a white flag in the war on terror,’ citing as evidence the defeat of a three-term Democratic senator who backed the Iraq war in his effort to win renomination.
But Bush aides on Thursday fought the notion that they had exploited their knowledge of the coming British raid to hit Democrats, saying the trigger had been the defeat of Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut by an anti-war political novice.
‘The comments were purely and simply a reaction’ to Democratic voters who ‘removed a pro-defense Senator and sent the message that the party would not tolerate candidates with such views,’ said Snow.
The public relations offensive ‘was not done in anticipation. It was not said with the knowledge that this was coming,’ the spokesman said.
Snow said Bush first learned in detail about the plot on Friday, and received two detailed briefings on it on Saturday and Sunday, as well as had two conversations about it with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
But a senior White House official said that the British government had not launched its raid until well after Cheney held a highly unusual conference call with reporters to attack the Democrats as weak against terrorism.”
-AFP, August 10, 2006