It's this week's Quote the Ravin', a roundup and snarky commentary about what's been said in the news and around the blogosphere. Today marks exactly three months since I've been unemployed. Tradition tells us the gift for those that are three months unemployed is bootstraps.
Today I'm broadcasting from a street corner in town in my second attempt to get some help from the local residents. My first try was a homemade sign that said, "Sarah Palin needs new verbs," but all I got were strange stares. I have had better luck with my "Please help with your hatred, hostility, and hatie hate hate. God bless you." My tin cup is now full to the brim with molten lava, parasitic worms and a nude photograph of Ann Coulter making angry face, which I have just courteously turned face down on the sidewalk.
Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart are on vacation, which makes my job waaay harder, and a lot less funnier. And to my three fans, I say hang in there, there's two lurkers. Let's get to quotin'.
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—Governor Jan Brewer (R, AZ), during her gubernatorial debate. They say the words of prophets are written on the subway walls.
Being Republican is not a lifestyle choice. And it doesn't mean you can't be young, or gay, or black, or anything else.
—Meghan McCain, from her book Dirty Sexy Politics. Oh great, NOW she tells us.
Of course, in true YA heroine fashion, after all the campaign pruning and coaching, Meghan goes back to a modified version of her original look and learns an important lesson about being herself, just a girl who’s not afraid to bleach her hair, wrap herself in an elephant snout, and tell us more than we wanted to know.
—Noreen Malone on Slate.
And my answer to that is that, judging by the fashion that you’ve conducted yourself, you have not earned it. Thank you. Next question.
—Rep. Steve King (R, IA) to Democratic challenger Matt Campbell, who showed up at a town hall meeting in Sioux City to confront King for refusing to debate him. Which party has the elitists again?
The ones with the heavy breathing, the reference to guns -- that's not cool. One guy said, 'If I have to pick up a gun to defend my country, I will".
—Freedomworks spokesperson Adam Brandon, on threatening calls to the office. Damn you, second amendment!
I remember a little thing, like Ms. Obama saying she didn't want any Christian artifacts in the White House during Christmas time.
—Gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo (R, CO). Tancredo should be the poster boy for Snopes.com.
Todd can talk Alaska politics and energy issues with such a thorough mastery of details that he could easily be mistaken for a think-tank analyst.
—Robert Stacy McCain's interview with Todd Palin, which was almost all off the record. Talk about hard hitting! I smell a Pulitzer!
It's just a peculiar thing, but she does, as I found out in May, she presses a button and what comes back is hate. The people who respond when she complains about something are just so filled with hate. I got some of the ugliest, most vile e-mails directed at me, my grandchildren, my children, my wife—just ugly, ugly stuff.
—Writer Joe McGinnis, on Sarah Palin.
He just doesn’t understand me. He just doesn’t GET me. And, what’s worse, he doesn’t seem to care that he doesn’t.
—Dana Perino about Barack Obama. First she said Obama was a turnoff, now he won't cuddle.
Al Gore and John Holdren have a ton of really bad ideas. But they're not responsible in any way for the Discovery nutjob guy.
—Glenn Beck. Aw, Glenn. That's just sweet.
Martin Luther King stood on that same ground 47 years earlier today and offered up a dream for a better America, but all Beck offered up was fear wrapped in Kevlar.
—Jason Easley, on the bulletproof vest Beck wore at the Restoring Honor rally.
I tell them I do believe that atheists are parasites, in the sense that they are benefiting from everything that religious culture has built in America but they are doing nothing to add energy into the system.
—Rabbi Daniel Lapin to Glenn Beck. At least atheists pay taxes.
I can tell you there's been 300 to 500 beheadings and dismemberments along that border. It is a national security concern, yet we're worried about this game-playing, this word-smithing.
—State Sen. Russell Pearce (R, TX). It appears to be as hard to count beheadings on the border as counting heads at a Glenn Beck rally. Especially when you don't have the heads.
And the political line has moved so far that if Reagan tried to run as a Republican now he would be the laughing stock of the party. Rush Limbaugh would tear him to shreds and Bill Kristol would say he is Neville Chamberlain. He would be run out of town as a tax-raising, amnesty giving, terrorist negotiating, cut and run no-good lib who hates the troops.
—Young Turks' Cenk Uygur.
They are going to have to reverse everything the Obama administration has done. If they don't repeal healthcare reform, they are going to be in big trouble.
—Former Rep. Tom Delay (R, TX). Uh oh. Goodbye prescription doughnut hole.
The presentation itself, I objected to the pictures of his kids in the background. I felt it was taking advantage of them and their images.
—Tucker Carlson on Sean Hannity complaining about Obama's picture of his family on his desk. Why don't you complain about his flag pin, while you're at it?
Is it unfair to say that this is a president whose heart doesn't seem to be in winning the war on terror, no matter what it costs?
—Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. Is it unfair to say Chris Wallace is a paid hack who would say anything for Fox viewer ratings?
History's written by the winners, unless those winners 1) join unpopular Senate majorities and 2) are Democrats.
—Slate's Dave Weigel on the delay of Al Franken to get seated in the Senate in 2008 and how it might have affected Obama's first year.