Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

Quiet as a mouse.

There certainly have been gaffes, softballs, and missed opportunities. And the most obvious are found in the Senate Committee on Homeland Security—the Senate's version of Rep. Henry Waxman's Oversight Committee in the House. Unlike Waxman's enthusiastic probing, the Senate chair conducted zero proactive investigations into Bush administration malfeasance. It's chairman? Connecticut's Joseph Lieberman.

-- BRIAN BEUTLER

Another 22,586–24,159 civilian deaths have been recorded in 2007 through Iraq Body Count’s extensive monitoring of media and official reports. . . . These figures show beyond any doubt that civil security in Iraq remains in a parlous state. Figures for the most recent months indicate that violence in Iraq has returned to the monthly levels IBC was recording in 2005, a year which was itself (until 2006) the worst since the invasion.

-- IRAQ BODY COUNT

Our military spending exceeds the rest of the world's spending combined, and we spend almost 10 times what the second-place country, China, spends. "Only" about $150 billion of the total U.S. amount is attributable to the two active wars we're fighting, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thus, even if one wants to excludes those amounts, the basic picture remains the same. Nor do these amounts include the billions of dollars in military aid we give to fund the militaries of other countries, such as Israel and Egypt, which alone comprises substantial portions of those countries' defense budgets.

And this gap between us and the rest of the world has widened considerably over the last 10 years. That's true because our own military spending, in absolute terms, has increased wildly during that time.

-- GLENN GREENWALD

We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably. Then when we look in the mirror as a nation, we will see, once again, the reflection of the United States of America.

-- THE NEW YORK TIMES

Why does Kenya get so little attention?

Is it because it’s in Africa? Because they’re not Muslims? Because we don’t import oil from Kenya? Because nobody can make political hay from it? Why?

-- DAVE SCHULER

Like 1968, 2008 could decide the direction of American politics for decades to come.

The parallels are striking--a President leaving office with an unpopular war still going on, long-standing social issues to be resolved and cultural changes breaking up what had seemed to be a consensus among previous generations.

Back then, there was Vietnam instead of Iraq, racial and gender equality rather than illegal immigration, and hippies, campus revolts and sexual revolution in place of today's faith-based conflicts over public regulation of private behavior.

-- ROBERT STEIN

Orwell said when someone calls Smith a fascist, what he means is, "I hate Smith." By calling Smith a fascist, you force Smith to deny he’s a sympathizer of Hitler and Mussolini. . . . Since the 1930s, "fascist" has been a term of hate and abuse used by the Left against the Right, as in the Harry Truman campaign. In 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. claimed to see in the Goldwater campaign "dangerous signs of Hitlerism." Twin the words, "Reagan, fascism" in Google and 1,800,000 references pop up.

Unsurprisingly, it is neoconservatives, whose roots are in the Trotskyist-Social Democratic Left, who are promoting use of the term. Their goal is to have Bush stuff al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran into an "Islamofascist" kill box, then let SAC do the rest. The term represents the same lazy, shallow thinking that got us into Iraq, where Americans were persuaded that by dumping over Saddam, we were avenging 9/11.

-- PAT BUCHANAN

The truth is, regardless of how many pointy tools and shampoo bottles we confiscate, there shall remain an unlimited number of ways to smuggle dangerous items onto a plane. The precise shape, form and substance of those items is irrelevant. We are not fighting materials, we are fighting the imagination and cleverness of the would-be saboteur.

-- PATRICK SMITH

Jamie Moyer is not a steroid user. His 62 mph fastball is a purely natural phenomenon.

-- ROBERT FARLEY

It's tradition as folks around the world ring in the new year for all manner of self-styled prognosticators to weigh in with their predictions of what the future holds in store -- sometimes from beyond the grave. (Jen-Luc Piquant notes that famed astrologer Sidney Omarr keeps churning out his annual zodiac guides despite having passed on to The Other Side ages ago.) Mostly these amount to informed guesses that, with a bit of luck, might turn out to be accurate. But just as often, the predictions are embarrassingly off the mark. Yet such is the public's hunger to know the future -- or at least to take comfort in the appearance of knowing, because for some, not knowing what's going to happen is simply a terrifying prospect -- that people flock to these modern-day seers like moths to a flame. (Or something. We're not quite feeling up to finding an original punchy analogy today.) More independent sorts might turn to tarot cards, or the I Ching; there are people out there who literally can't bring themselves to leave the house without casting the yarrow sticks to see what the fates have planned for them -- sometimes more than once for optimistic sorts, because, yanno, you want to leave the house on a high note.

-- JENNIFER OUELETTE