Fenger Pointing
Becky Fenger | December 23, 2009
Quotes of the decade
Let’s take a look at this fading decade through the lens of quotation marks. There were some real zingers uttered.
2000
“Sprawl is caused by affluence and population growth, and which of these exactly do we propose to prohibit?” – Author Greg Easterbrook, with one of my favorite probing questions.
“Lisa Keegan doesn’t need $155 million to see that kids pass the AIMS test. Just bring in a brigade of nuns.” – Radio talk show host Bob Mohan (during Keegan’s tenure as Superintendent of Public Instruction.)
2001
“There are no Latinos on the U.S. Supreme Court. I would support that unless, of course, it was some right-wing conservative.” – Reporter Geraldo Rivera on MSNBC-TV.
“But the Reverend’s great innovation will probably turn out to have been his pioneering use of drive-by penance.” – Columnist Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. of the Wall Street Journal, writing on Jesse Jackson’s accomplishments.
“The towns of Surprise and El Mirage went down the drain when Anglos moved in.” – Rosie Lopez, of the Arizona Hispanic Redistricting Forum in public hearing testimony, June 12.
2002
“Adlai Stevenson and Harry Truman” – Susan Goldwater, widow of U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater, when asked who were her political heroes.
“It isn’t dignified to talk about freeze-drying his head as if he were some sort of Colombian coffee bean.” – KTAR (620 AM) talk show host David Leibowitz, lamenting the family feud over the remains of baseball great Ted Williams.
2003
“There’s a misconception among policymakers and lawmakers and others that the courts ought not, should not, do not make law.” – Arizona Chief Justice Charles E. Jones.
“This is not a pay raise. This is an increase that’s required by law.” – U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, explaining why the nation’s most exclusive club is helpless to stop the Cost of Living Adjustment foisted upon them by themselves.
2004
“The most powerful addictive substance known to man on the planet is OPM (other people’s money). There is no cure. Only the act of resigning.” – Talk show host and community activist Roger Hedgecock.
“We have to socially engineer people until they hit the threshold of pain to get them out of their cars.” – Bill “Crowbar” Heckman, chairman of the Public Policy Advisory Committee for the Scottsdale Chamber of Commerce.
“That’s been quite a gathering of Democrats in Boston this week. It includes Bill Clinton who’s been impeached and later disbarred for lying under oath; Ted Kennedy who drove his car off a bridge and left a young woman to drown, ‘The Rev.’ Jesse Jackson, a shakedown artist who fathered a child out of wedlock, and ‘The Rev.’ Al Sharpton, a race hustler whose scandals include instigating a riot that resulted in six deaths.” – Former White House Press Secretary Lyn Nofziger.
2005
“The biggest mistake an economist can make when analyzing U.S. public education is to presume that expenditures have anything to do with the necessary costs of educating students.” – John T. Wenders, Cato Institute.
2006
“This is an age in which ‘girls gone wild’ is becoming a redundancy.” – Outspoken best-selling author and columnist Ann Coulter, on the behavior of our youthful fair sex.
“Little old ladies who have no trouble handling 30 bingo cards at once could not manage a single ballot in Florida.” – Columnist and author George Will, referring to the uproar over questioned ballots in the Sunshine State.
2007
“Science doesn’t tell us the answers so some of it we have to go on feelings.” – Organic food activist and former Greenpeace United Kingdom chief Peter Melchett.
2008
“We don’t racially profile our contributors.” – The irrepressible U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney in a congressional primary debate with challenger Denise Majette who pointed out donations to McKinney from suspected Islamic terrorists.
“I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system.” – U.S. President George W. Bush, Dec. 16 in an interview on CNN explaining why he supported the government bailouts for financial organizations and the auto industry.
2009
“I turned to go and, after I had turned my back, he gave me a mighty shove that flung me to the ground and knocked me out.” – The Viscount Lord Monckton of Brenchley in Copenhagen last week who was cold-cocked by the Danish police when he, along with other fully credentialed, respectable, well-behaved man-made global warming skeptics were denied access to the UN Conference of Parties. Welcome to the New World Order!