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We're Good at Killing

From a letter to the editor in the San Francisco Chronicle: "I loved Shakespeare in Love, but like most Americans, I felt Saving Private Ryan was more deserving of a best-picture Oscar. I think what happened was that all the liberals in the Academy could not stomach the fact that America is the greatest country on Earth. The fact is that one of the things that makes America great is that we have won wars. In the process of winning wars, America has effectively and aggressively killed lots of other humans. That most of those humans were evil and out to kill as many Americans and other democracy-loving people as possible is immaterial to liberals. Saving Private Ryan blatantly demonstrated a bunch of heroic Americans killing Nazis by the bushel. All those Academy lefties could not handle it, so they chose denial in the safe environs of the Bard."

Trickle Down Politics I

From an article in the Tuscaloosa News of Tuscaloosa, Alabama: "Steve Windom has already earned a place in Alabama history by becoming the state's only Republican lieutenant governor this century. But will he earn a new spot by urinating in a jug during a marathon session of the Senate? ... The `jug,' as Windom called it, was actually a water pitcher and a five-gallon cooler hidden under the presiding officer's podium in the Senate. When the Senate met on Palm Sunday for a marathon session, Windom did not leave his presiding officer's seat for fear the Senate's Number Two official, Democrat Lowell Barron, would grab it and the Senate would pass new rules taking away all of his authority. To keep from going to a restroom located about ten feet from the podium, he used the pitcher to urinate in. Windom's actions were hidden from public view by the chest-high podium. But it was perfect fodder for drive-time disc jockeys on Monday morning. State Republican Party Chairman Winton Blount blamed Governor Don Siegelman `and his extreme band of radical, leftwing Democrats' for `reducing the Senate to a laughing stock.'"

Fifty-eight Years of Peace

Madeleine Albright, explaining to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee why the President has no intention of seeking a declaration of war from Congress for U.S. military action in Kosovo: "The President welcomes the support of Congress, but his belief is that he does not need a declaration of war. We don't consider ourselves at war with Yugoslavia.... Since 1941, there has not been a declaration of war."

First Things First

From a column in The Washington Post called "Y2K," on efforts to correct computer problems that could wreak havoc at year's end: "About half of doctors, hospitals, and nursing homes report that their billing and medical records computer systems have been fixed for Year 2000 operation, but fewer than a third said they had finished checking their biomedical equipment, a federal survey released yesterday showed."

Do As I Say ...

President Clinton speaking to the nation after two students shot their classmates in Littleton, Colorado: "We do know that we must do more to reach out to our children and teach them to express their anger and to resolve their conflicts with words, not weapons."

... Not As I Do

National Security Adviser Sandy Berger describing, to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, NATO's role in Kosovo and around the world: "NATO must play the same stabilizing role in central and southeastern Europe that it played in Western Europe by integrating new democracies, giving them an incentive to resolve their tensions peacefully, and encouraging them to pool their strength instead of pitting it against their neighbors and their own people."

Alternative Teaching Methods

From an Associated Press story datelined Denver, Colorado: "The shooting rampage at a suburban Denver high school prompted state lawmakers to delay action on a bill that would help gun owners obtain concealed weapons permits. Representative Doug Dean, Republican of Colorado Springs, sponsor of the bill, said the Littleton tragedy might have been offset if a faculty member, or administrator, had been armed."

Hello Guns, Goodbye Butter

From a story in The Washington Post on President Clinton's request for $6 billion in supplemental funding for the U.S. military mission in Kosovo: "Kosovo is already changing the contours of this year's budget debate. House Majority Leader Richard Armey suggested yesterday that the war would cause Republicans to readjust their thinking on their proposal to enact an $800 billion tax cut.... Republicans probably will not be able to sustain their proposal to dedicate all the money brought in by Social Security taxes to the retirement program.... Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said the war `again raises the question from the beginning of the Vietnam War of guns versus butter. We can't have everything.' ... Besides Kosovo funding, GOP lawmakers have made clear their intention to enlarge the bill in order to bolster future defense needs."

Trickle Down Politics II

From a story in The Boston Globe datelined Providence, Rhode Island: "The state's corporate leaders are seeking a tax cut for wealthy people, arguing that it would encourage highly paid executives from out of state to expand their businesses into Rhode Island.... Officials said they would study the issue."

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