The profund, silly, logical, and accurate. Quotes of the day.

If you think our country and its government are FUBAR, remember Winston Churchill’s quote “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”  Then again Churchill never met Michelle Bachmann.

Speaking of Bachmann, if the first 15 minutes of Face the Nation in Sunday were an indication of what to expect in the 112th Congress, I may start DVR’ing C-Span.  Democrats Anthony Weiner and Debbie Wasserman Schultz squared off in a lively debate against Republicans Bachmann and Mike Kelly.  Here is a sampler:
Weiner: “Apparently my Republican friends believe the tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires – somehow the bill fairy pays for that.”
Kelly [to Weiner]: “You’re very amusing. You have never, in your life, you have never done anything on your own with your own skin in the game.”
Wasserman-Schultz: “It’s time to go beyond rhetoric. Going beyond campaign slogans which is all I’ve heard today from Mr. Kelly and is all Ms. Bachmann really ever engages in.”
Bachmann: “Real world is where America lives, it’s not the bubble in Washington, D.C. where they engage in fantasy economics.”

This just may be the craziest thing I have heard in a long time.  Crazy because it marks the first time I am on the side of an issue with Pat Robertson when the archconservative said, "I'm not exactly for the use of drugs. Don't get me wrong. But I just believe that criminalizing marijuana, criminalizing the possession of a few ounces of pot and that kind of thing, it's costing us a fortune and it's ruining young people."  Yep that’s Crazy.
Why I love Natalie Portman.  In an interview regarding her new film Black Swan, she said:  “Everyone was so worried about who was going to want to see this movie. I remember them being like, ‘How do you get guys to a ballet movie? How do you get girls to a thriller?’ And the answer is a lesbian scene. Everyone wants to see that.”  Brilliant.

Perhaps Boehner and the rest of the GOP Congressional caucus could take a lesson from one of their heroes, the Ayn Randian Defender of Free Markets, Alan Greenspan.  When Greenspan agreed to join the Nixon White House he quipped “Compromise on public issues is the price of civilization, not an abrogation of principle.”  I get choked up just thinking about this.
Alfred E.  Khan, the Liberal Democrat who served as head of the Civilian Aeronautics Board (CAB) in the Carter administration, died on December 27th.   Kahn’s claim to fame was the deregulation of the airline industry and in the process ending the CAB.  Yes a Liberal can be for deregulation.  He summed up his philosophy, and a damn fine one I might add, in the following: “I believe in deregulation where regulation is unnecessary, inefficient, and injurious to consumers.”  But the real question is what is worse: weak regulation or no regulation?  More on that subject in weeks to come.

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