Quotes

• Thank You US Marines : "After 9/11, we lost much of our innocence as a nation. And after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, you're unlikely to find college students -- even at Evergreen -- who are unaware of the Marines. But it has been seven years since the terrorists attacked us on our own soil; time enough to allow us to relax our guard, if only slightly. Our military deserves much of the credit for providing us that breathing room. We haven't won the war on terrorism yet, and we have many battles ahead -- including years of hard work rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet we can all take pride in the men and women of our military whose constant vigilance keeps our enemies outside the gates.
  
  "Tomorrow we'll reflect on this as we celebrate Veteran's Day. As they go about their work or enjoy their day off a few of our fellow countrymen will remember to shake the hands of our veterans and thank us for our service. But while I'll appreciate the generous sentiment what I really want is to see the day when they can take us for granted again.
  
  "Because the world is a dangerous place, I realize that day won't come anytime soon. But because there are U.S. Marines in the world, I know that day will come again."
  
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• A Lurch Left? Mark Steyn asks. : "It's hard for Republicans to hammer Obama as a socialist when their own party's nationalizing the banks and its presidential nominee is denouncing the private sector for putting profits before patriotism. That's why Joe the Plumber struck a chord: He briefly turned a one-and-a-half party election back into a two-party choice again."
  
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• Obama Needs A Strong Foreign Policy : "The new internationalism must recapture the spirit of tough liberalism exemplified by Presidents Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy. As Kennedy famously pointed out, Cold War liberals did not fear to negotiate, but they understood that U.S. diplomacy is most effective when backed by the credible threat of force. So they kept U.S. forces strong and showed resolve in defending open societies against their enemies. Speaking of resolve, it took Russian President Dmitry Medvedev just two days to confirm Joe Biden's famous prediction that Mr. Obama would be "tested" by foreign adversaries."
  
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• Fouad Ajami on Crowds : "There is something odd -- and dare I say novel -- in American politics about the crowds that have been greeting Barack Obama on his campaign trail. Hitherto, crowds have not been a prominent feature of American politics. We associate them with the temper of Third World societies. We think of places like Argentina and Egypt and Iran, of multitudes brought together by their zeal for a Peron or a Nasser or a Khomeini. In these kinds of societies, the crowd comes forth to affirm its faith in a redeemer: a man who would set the world right."
  
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• Krauthammer Endorsing McCain : "The case for McCain is straightforward. The financial crisis has made us forget, or just blindly deny, how dangerous the world out there is. We have a generations-long struggle with Islamic jihadism. An apocalyptic soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. A nuclear-armed Pakistan in danger of fragmentation. A rising Russia pushing the limits of revanchism. Plus the sure-to-come Falklands-like surprise popping out of nowhere.
  
  Who do you want answering that phone at 3 a.m.? A man who's been cramming on these issues for the past year, who's never had to make an executive decision affecting so much as a city, let alone the world?"
  
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• Daniel Henninger on Sarah Palin's Qualifications : "The primary discomfort with Gov. Palin is the notion that she doesn't have sufficient experience to be president, that Sen. McCain should have picked a Washington hand seasoned in the ways of the world. Such as? Here's an opinion poll question:
  
  If as Joe Biden suggests the U.S. is likely to be tested by a foreign enemy next year, who of the following would you rather have dealing with it in the Oval Office: Nancy (of Damascus) Pelosi, Harry Reid, John Edwards, Joe (the U.S. drove Hezbollah out of Lebanon) Biden, Mike Huckabee, Geraldine Ferraro, Tom DeLay, Jimmy Carter or Sarah Palin?
  
  My pick? Gov. Palin, surely the most grounded, common-sense person on that list of prime-time politicians.
  
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• Gary Bauer on the Importance of Values : "You can measure a great nation in a lot of different ways. You can measure it by the strength of its military, the growth of its economy, the gleam of its cities. We are a great nation by those measurements and many, many others. But you can also measure a nation by how many of its families are broken, by how big its virtue deficit is, how many of its children cry themselves to sleep at night....The fact of the matter is that...all over America too many of our children are crying themselves to sleep. Too many children without a father's arms to comfort them, too many children exploited by sex or drugs or pornography, too man children that have bought into the popular culture's song that if it feels good do it. By those measurements, this country is in danger of becoming something much less than a great, great nation."
  
  
• Journalists' Creed : "I believe that the journalism which succeeds the best-and best deserves success-fears God and honors man; is stoutly independent; unmoved by pride of opinion or greed of power; constructive, tolerant but never careless, self-controlled, patient, always respectful of its readers but always unafraid, is quickly indignant at injustice; is unswayed by the appeal of the privilege or the clamor of the mob; seeks to give every man a chance, and as far as law, an honest wage and recognition of human brotherhood can make it so, an equal chance; is profoundly patriotic while sincerely promoting international good will and cementing world-comradeship, is a journalism of humanity, of and for today's world."
  
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• Calvin Coolidge on the Economy and Business and Ethics : "We make no concealment of the fact that we want wealth, but there are many other things that we want very much more. We want peace and honor, and that charity which is so strong an element of all civilization. The chief ideal of the American people is idealism. I cannot repeat too often that America is a nation of idealists. That is the only motive to which they ever give any strong and lasting reaction."
  
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• Charles Krauthammer on Obama and his Associates : "Today, on the threshold of the presidency, Obama concedes the odiousness of these associations, which is why he has severed them. But for the years in which he sat in Wright's pews and shared common purpose on boards with Ayers, Obama considered them a legitimate, indeed unremarkable, part of social discourse.
  
  "Do you? Obama is a man of first-class intellect and first-class temperament. But his character remains highly suspect. There is a difference between temperament and character. Equanimity is a virtue. Tolerance of the obscene is not."."
  
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• Bill Kristol on the American Mood & Election : "They're for raising taxes, federally funding abortions, naming activist judges, and losing wars. The American people may think--they do think--the country's on the wrong track, that the Bush administration has made too many mistakes and that the Republican party's no great shakes. But they haven't suddenly become liberals."
  
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• Advice from Dolly Parton : People always comin' up to me and askin' "Dolly, what's your secret? With all you do, your attitude Just seems to be so good How do you keep it?" Well I'm not the Dalai Lama, but I'll try To offer up a few words of advice Chorus:
  
  You better get to livin', givin' Don't forget to throw in a little forgivin' And lovin' on the way You better get to knowin', showin' A little bit more concerned about where you're goin' Just a word unto the wise You better get to livin'
  
  A girlfriend came to my house Started cryin' on my shoulder Sunday evening She was spinnin' such a sad tale I could not believe the yarn that she was weavin' So negative the words she had to say I said if I had a violin I'd play
  
  I said you'd better get to livin', givin' Be willing and forgivin' Cause all healing has to start with you You better stop whining, pining Get your dreams in line And then just shine, design, refine Until they come true And you better get to livin'
  
  Your life's a wreck, your house is mess And your wardrobe way outdated All your plans just keep on falling through Overweight and under paid, under appreciated I'm no guru, but I'll tell you This I know is true
  
  You better get to livin', givin' A little more thought about bein' A little more willin' to make a better way Don't sweat the small stuff Keep your chin up Just hang tough And if it gets too rough Fall on your knees and pray And do that everyday Then you'll get to livin'
  
  The day we're born we start to die Don't waste one minute of this life Get to livin' Share your dreams and share your laughter Make some points for the great hereafter
  
  Better start carin' Better start sharin' Better start tryin' Better start smiling And you better get to livin'
  
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• Standing Athwart History : "While Kathryn Jean Lopez isn't working (24 hours a day!) overseeing the world's premier conservative website, she's been busy putting together a fantastic collection of the best articles, editorials, and symposia to appear on National Review Online. Covering a range of topics - and nicely segmented into chapters such as At War, Heroes, Partisans, Policy Fights, Immigration, Decline and Fall, Media, People, and Before You Move On - the top-quality soft-cover's 240 pages include contributions from a conservative Who's Who: Joseph Abrams, Anne Bayefsky, William J. Bennett, Michael Knox Beran, Denis Boyles, Richard Brookhiser, William F. Buckley Jr., Mona Charen...."
  
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• Bill Bennett at the Voter Values Summit : "I go with the man-McCain-who has criticisms of his country but who harbors no deep ambivalence about it. I go for the man who is his country's man rather than for the man whose mind and heart do not seem yet made up about America.
  
  "Ladies and Gentlemen: When you become President of the United States, there are in fact things you can and should learn on the job. But moral clarity about America is not one of them. You must bring that one with you."
  
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• Larry Kudlow's 9/11/08 Thoughts : "God bless America for surviving 9/11.
  
  God bless the men and women who died in that horrible attack.
  
  God bless the police, firemen, and other emergency responders who died serving their country and their fellow Americans.
  
  God bless all the families and friends who lost loved ones on that terrible day.
  
  God bless the U.S armed services at home and abroad who have kept our country safe for seven years.
  
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• Bill Bennett on 9/11 & the Teaching of the Virtues : "In the aftermath of 9/11, I am re-thinking some of the things I wrote a couple years ago about the American character. I had feared, frankly, that we had drifted so far from the ideas and principles of our Founding Fathers that their understanding of nobility had become but a dim memory.
  
  "Certainly it remains true that the words and deeds of George Washington and of the other great figures of American history are not sufficiently vivid in the minds of our kids, or even of too many of our adults. Nevertheless, 9/11 provided pretty compelling evidence of the solid virtues we Americans retain."
  
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• Edmund Burke on Manners : "Manners are of more importance than laws. Upon them in great measure the laws depend. The law touches us but here and there, and now and then. Manners are what vex and smooth, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. They give their whole form and color to our lives. According to their quality, they aid morals, they support them, or they totally destroy them."
• Ronald Reagan's 1984 RNC Acceptance Speech : "The choices this year are not just between two different personalities or between two political parties. They're between two different visions of the future, two fundamentally different ways of governing -- their government of pessimism, fear, and limits, or ours of hope, confidence, and growth.
  
  "Their government sees people only as members of groups; ours serves all the people of America as individuals. Theirs lives in the past, seeking to apply the old and failed policies to an era that has passed them by. Ours learns from the past and strives to change by boldly charting a new course for the future. Theirs lives by promises, the bigger, the better. We offer proven, workable answers."
  
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• Nat Hentoff on Sarah Palin : "Last December, this mother of four children, Mrs. Palin, four months' pregnant, found she was going to have a child with Down syndrome - a condition characterized by moderate-to-severe mental retardation. A school friend of one of my sons had Down syndrome; I have also known functioning adults with the extra chromosomes of that syndrome.
  
  "However, as a longtime reporter on disability rights, I have discovered that many fetuses so diagnosed have been aborted by parents who have been advised by their doctors to end the pregnancies because of the future "imperfect quality of life" of such children.
  
  "Mrs. Palin's first reaction to the diagnosis