Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

That Mrs. Clinton’s campaign kept insisting her Bosnia tale was the truth two days after The Post exposed it as utter fiction also shows the political perils of 20th-century analog arrogance in a digital age. Incredible as it seems, the professionals around Mrs. Clinton — though surely knowing her story was false — thought she could tough it out. They ignored the likelihood that a television network would broadcast the inevitable press pool video of a first lady’s foreign trip — as the CBS Evening News did on Monday night — and that this smoking gun would then become an unstoppable assault weapon once harnessed to the Web.

-- FRANK RICH

[Obama and Clinton] struggling against each other for every superdelegate, every pending state primary, every vote is the best thing America has had going for it in some time on the "global public diplomacy" front . . . The world is watching, learning. And American popularity in the eyes of global citizens watching us is surging because of the excitement and uncertainty of this fascinating election.

-- STEVE CLEMONS

I don't want to pick on the South, but one of the reasons that the Republicans are in so much trouble in the Interior West is that the GOP became a culturally southern party during the Bush years. This is one way of putting it:

As [conservative radio talk-show host, Jon] Caldara put it: "Colorado is, in fact, the test tube of how to export liberal expansion to the Western states." A moderately conservative state has been turned Blue, Caldara says, because of "the absolute demolishing of what the Right stood for, how the Republican Party turned into something it was never meant to be and went away from Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan ideas."

When Jon Caldara says "Goldwater-Reagan ideas" he means "libertarian" ideas. Democrats killed themselves out West by doing things like creating a federal 55-mile per hour speed limit. The GOP gave the advantage back by obsessing over people's sexual preferences and looting the treasury. By no means do the Democrats have any kind of dominance in the region. In fact, they are still struggling to compete in Wyoming and Idaho, and have no strength in Utah. But the Democrats have a real chance to turn New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado blue in the presidential race (provided they do not nominate Clinton).

-- BOOMAN

Among the debts reported this month by Hillary Rodham Clinton’s struggling presidential campaign, the $292,000 in unpaid health insurance premiums for her campaign staff stands out.

-- KENNETH P. VOGEL

Surely it must have been a slip for Maureen Dowd to align the artistry of my late husband, Gene Kelly, with the president’s clumsy performances. To suggest that "George Bush has turned into Gene Kelly" represents not only an implausible transformation but a considerable slight. If Gene were in a grave, he would have turned over in it.

When Gene was compared to the grace and agility of Jack Dempsey, Wayne Gretzky and Willie Mays, he was delighted. But to be linked with a clunker — particularly one he would consider inept and demoralizing — would have sent him reeling.

Graduated with a degree in economics from Pitt, Gene was not only a gifted dancer, director and choreographer, he was also a most civilized man. He spoke multiple languages; wrote poetry; studied history; understood the projections of Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes. He did the Sunday Times crossword in ink. Exceedingly articulate, Gene often conveyed more through movement than others manage with words.

Sadly, President Bush fails to communicate meaningfully with either. For George Bush to become Gene Kelly would require impossible leaps in creativity, erudition and humility.

-- PATRICIA WARD KELLY

Cartoon by Tom Toles/Universal Press Syndicate