BartBlog

Who Said the Following?

Get out a pencil and paper and take the quiz. And no cheating with ‘the Google.’

1. “The most important distinction in this campaign is that I represent real hope for change … I want to bring that change to the American people. But we must all decide first we have the courage to change for hope and a better tomorrow.”

2. “I believe experience counts, but it’s not everything. Values, judgment, and the record that I have amassed in my state also should count for something.”

3. “We have got to have the courage to change.”

4. “And you can have the right kind of experience and the wrong kind of experience. Mine is rooted in the real lives of real people, and it will bring real results if we have the courage to change.”

5. “[W]e need a president who will bring this country together, not divide it. We’ve had enough division. I want to lead a unified country.”

6. “We can do it. I know we can. ”

7. “We don’t have a person to waste in this country. We are being murdered economically because we have too many drop-outs, we have too many low birthweight babies, we have too many drug addicts as kids, we have too much violence, we are too divided by race, by income, by region. And I have devoted a major portion of this campaign to going across this country and looking for opportunities to go to white groups and African American groups and Latino groups and Asian American groups and say the same thing.”

8. “If the American people cannot be brought together, we can’t turn this country around. If we can come together, nothing can stop us.”

9. “But if you don’t have the guts to control costs by changing the insurance system and taking on the bureaucracies and the regulation of health care in the private and public sector, you can’t fix this problem. Costs will continue to spiral.
“So let’s be careful. When we talk about cutting health care costs, let’s start with the insurance companies and the people that are making a killing instead of making our people healthy.”

10. “I’m tired of being told we can’t. I say we can. We can do better, and we must.”

Answers below.

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While I believe every American has the right to bitterly complain about politics and politicians, and do a considerable amount of it myself, some of the third-party Nader/McKinney for President Puritans remind me of the GOP chickenhawks who want to start wars all over the planet as long as they don’t have to strap on a helmet and get shot at themselves. Yes, the Democrats have gone weak and spineless on many issues, but with a Dem President and a larger majority in the Congress, that would quickly change, I think. And politics is a dirty business – purists are perpetually outraged at those pols who have to occasionally compromise to get good things done, but they have no better solution to offer – just more carping and denunciation.

So, in the interest of constructive advice, here’s a suggestion for the Perfect World crowd who despise and deride the Democrats so much: Why don’t you run for office? Either as a Democrat, or a Green, or independent, or whatever — stop complaining that others aren’t doing exactly what you want them to do and do it yourself. Go out and get the necessary signatures on a petition and file it with the state and put your name on the ballot. (And it has to be your full name; you won’t be able to hide behind a screen name.) Don’t like your senator or congressional rep? Run to replace them!

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The Big Ace Parses the Dem Debate and McCain’s Dilemma

“The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.”
– Albert Camus

“It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility.”
– Yogi Berra

The Big Ace sat hunched over a Scotch on the rocks at the bar; since you can’t smoke in saloons in Chicago anymore, he twiddled his unlit cheroot between thumb and forefinger, with the bartender casting an occasional wary eye to make sure he didn’t try to light it up.

“What have you got for me, Ace?” I said, slumping into the barstool next to him and ordering a beer.

“Hell of a thing, you can’t smoke in a bar in Chicago,” he fretted, staring forlornly at his virgin cigar. “You know, it’s this kind of thing that gives you liberals a bad reputation – this no-smoking-in-bars Nanny State crap. Restaurants, office buildings, oxygen tents I can see – but, bars? It’s crazy.”

I agreed with a nod and, flipping out a pocket notebook, asked him again what he had picked up from his contacts in politics and business. The following is recreated from memory and my sketchy notes.

“Did you see the Democratic debate last Thursday? It wasn’t so much that Hillary had to do so well – face it, she’s not the inspiring speaker Obama is and never will be, and racking up debating points is strictly the kind of BS the pundits care about – nobody ever says ‘oh, for joy, my candidate won on debating points!’ No, the thing she had to do was trip Obama up – make him lose his cool and say something really stupid. She needed a clip that would be played over and over in the two weeks before the Texas and Ohio primaries of an angry Obama trying to carve her up like any regular politician and eating his shoe leather in the process. Like that debate between Carter and Ford in ’76 where Ford said Eastern Europe wasn’t Communist – she needed one of those ‘what the hell?!’ moments, but she didn’t get it; she couldn’t rile him out of his ‘zone.’ Worse, of the two clips the media played post-debate, one was of her getting booed. Disaster. Obama played her like a Zen master, making his points and letting her bury herself in minutiae. In the end, who looked more presidential: The woman trying to press some thin plagiarism charge that nobody much cares about, or the guy who calmly deflected her attacks with dignity and poise?

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