"I want to advance one prediction. In another year, maybe, just maybe, you'll miss us." -- Clinton administration ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, encouraging the Israelis to harbor fond memories of Bill, Hillary, Madeleine, et al (or is that "et Al?"). He may be right, though. With all the strife in that part of the world, the Israeli people probably will regret the loss of their comic relief.

"I'm very, very concerned about the Bush presidency. I'm worried about the cuts he might make in domestic programs that mean things to people including members of my family who depend on certain things from the government." -- Sarah Jessica Parker, star of HBO's "Sex and the City", whose family, it seems, cannot depend on her and her 30 million dollars.

"I don't know if the fact that we drew the short straw and had that terrible mess with the Elian Gonzalez case cost [Gore] a lot of votes in Florida, but it could have." -- President Clinton, in an interview with Dan Rather, describing the armed abduction he ordered as just rotten luck.

"The snowman's location in the semi-public space of garden or field reinforces a spatial-social system marking the women's sphere as the domestic-private and the men's as the commercial-public -- British professor Tricia Cusack, who would do well to keep her kooky remarks a little more domestic-private.

"She has these baby blue eyes … just piercing!" -- President Clinton, publicly pitching woo to 74 year-old Queen Elizabeth II.

"Clarence Thomas more or less mused through it all (the Bush v. Gore oral arguments). He had nothing to say. He was really a spectator." -- Jesse Jackson, finding it difficult to believe that someone could be doing anything productive while keeping his mouth shut.

" You can document it, you can look at where, who got disenfranchised, the quantity, and who, from Liberty City, to Broward, to Lakeland, to Rivera Beach, Orlando, to inner city Jacksonville, most of those disenfranchised were African Americans Students at FL A&M, Bethune-Cookman, went to vote, the ballots registration in their hands, their name not on the polls. 80 percent were African American. And you had the Holocaust survivors in the West Palm area, who pushed the button for Gore and they got Buchanan, they didn’t mean to do that, their was a violation, of them for example. And so, in Duval County, 27,000 ballots were thrown away, they were held back until the protest period was over, in fact. And so, if this were Yugoslavia, and at the end, Milosevic was losing, you got to the last state where Milosevic’s brother was the governor, and in that state the machinery broke down, and he won by the margin of machination in his brother’s state, we would be slow to certify that election, it would not pass the smell test." -- Jesse Jackson, who could fill an entire "harumph" page all by himself.

"The same forces that were against the Voting Rights Act of 1965 … seek to disenfranchise us in 2000 and do not want to renew the Voting Rights Act in the year 2007!" -- Jesse Jackson, making an absolute ninny out of himself, by spreading unfounded accusations of racial intimidation at the polls, feigning ignorance of the fact that it was his own party which opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and perpetuating a moronic internet hoax by inferring that black Americans' right to vote might be repealed when the Voting Rights Act comes up for renewal in 2007. For more, please read The Voting Rights Hoax: Racial scaremongers collide (3/2/00)

"I may not have been the greatest president but I've had the most fun eight years." -- President Clinton, getting his priorities straight.

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"[A]lthough it is part of the popular culture to talk about how unfair it is to change the rules of the game, I think that misses the point when the game is over, and when it's over in a kind of photo finish that leaves people unsure who won." -- Florida attorney general Laurence Tribe, explaining why it's fair to change the rules of the game after it's over ... depending on who won.

"Disenfranchising people isn't very nice." -- Laurence Tribe, during oral arguments before the Supreme Court, employing what passes for a liberal constitutional argument.

"This is America. When votes are cast, we count them. We don't arbitrarily set them aside because it's too difficult to count them." -- Al Gore, describing a mechanical recount as "arbitrary."

"This is the time to honor the rule of law, not surrender to the rule of the mob." --Joe Lieberman, explaining why he thinks Florida's illegal hand recount should continue.

"We're here to express our dismay as American citizens at the action of the Miami-Dade County board of canvassers in giving in to mob rule, and deciding not to recount the ballots when they had already decided to do so, pursuant to the election law of Florida." -- Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D, N.Y.), who has obviously seen his party's focus group data on the term "mob rule," but fails to recognize that the Dade County board is only giving in to the rule of the Florida Supreme Mob, who set Nov. 26 as a deadline for reporting recount totals.

"Republicans are just better trained voters; it's just one of those quirks." -- Florida International University political science professor Dario Moreno, making a statement which prodded one Shinbone reader to remark, "Gee, I'm glad the GOP shelled out all of that money to send me to election school."

"The advocates for either side [in the election] are under enormous pressure, and, of course, they're being pretty snippy with each other from time to time." -- President Clinton, who apparently has some focus group data showing that the word "snippy" went over big with soccer moms.

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"In our national memory, Vietnam was a war. But Vietnam is also a country." -- President Clinton, who would have made this revelation over thirty years ago, if he'd gone there when he was drafted.

"Ron Klein, our (Democrat) state senator, came to me and told me that when we give out these palm cards, I should tell people that they must be very careful to punch #5 (Al Gore), because the arrows were misleading." -- Palm Beach County poll worker Bernice Epstein, not considering that anyone might be allowed to vote for someone else.

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"The only ones (ballots) we reconstructed were the ones we could tell the intent of the voter." -- Gadsden County, Fla. canvassing board member Sterling Watson, employing the Vulcan mind-meld to scare up a few more votes for Al Gore.

"Turns out I wasn't too bright." -- Florida voter Andre Fladell, explaining why he thinks he was fooled by that "confusing" ballot in Palm Beach County.

"When my opponent, Gov. Bush, says he will appoint strict constructionists to the Supreme Court, I often think of the strictly constructionist meaning that was applied when the Constitution was written and how some people were considered three-fifths of a human being." -- Al Gore, either not realizing or not caring that it was actually the abolitionists who devised the three-fifths rule, as a compromise with the slave states, who wanted to count their slaves among their populations in order to gain an advantage in the electoral college.

"He [Bush] is proposing to take $1 trillion, a million billion dollars, out of the Social Security trust fund." -- that storied master of facts and figgers, Al Gore.

"Where families are doing PGA [pre-implantation genetic analysis] anyway for diseases, why not allow them to pick a girl if they already have four boys?" -- "legal ethicist" John Robertson of the University of Texas, encouraging the killing of human embryos for the purpose of sex selection ... ethically, mind you.

"No, no ... I don't want the taxpayers to pay for my medicine." -- can-collecting Gore campaign stooge Winifred Skinner, who sure could have fooled us.

"Hhhuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh!" -- Al Gore, rebutting one of Gov. Bush's arguments during their October 3 debate.

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"I want the federal government, consistent with local control and new accountability, to make improvement in our schools the number one priority so Kailee will have a desk and can sit down in a classroom where she can learn." -- Al Gore, devising a new federal program for moving furniture.

"Hhhuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh!" -- Al Gore, rebutting another one of Gov. Bush's arguments during their October 3 debate.

"She's 79 years old, she has Social Security. I'm not going to cut her benefits or support any proposal that would. She gets a small pension. But in order to pay for her prescription drug benefits, she has to go out seven days a week, several hours a day, picking up cans. She came all the way from Iowa in a Winnebago with her poodle in order to attend here tonight." -- Al Gore, telling the alleged story of his campaign's mascot, Winifred Skinner. The poor woman ... that Winnebago probably doesn't even have a DVD player in it.

"I think he [John Lennon] would be liberal. I think he would care. I think he would probably want to see me released." -- Lennon's murderer Mark David Chapman, who must hope his victim was right about there being no hell below us and above us only sky.

"... and then all of a sudden there was a plea agreement that was inconsistent with the claims that were made." -- President Clinton, feigning surprise over the results of his administration's frivolous prosecution of Energy Department fall guy Wen Ho Lee

"It just happened. There were a whole lot of people in the room. I was talking to them and I turned around and he was standing there." -- President Clinton, explaining that he couldn't help but shake hands with Fidel Castro at the U.N. Millennium Summit. Luckily for Fidel, he didn't happen to have a cigar on him at the time.

"The labor movement is built on values that come from faith" -- Joe Lieberman, making Karl Marx turn over in his grave, during a Labor Day speech in Detroit.

"We feel very strongly, and we hope you would agree, that appealing along religious lines, or belief in God, is contrary to the American ideal." -- the Anti-Defamation League, in a letter to Sen. Joseph Lieberman, telling him to stop being so Jewish.

"In 1993, in January, when I became the President of the United States, there were, in total in the whole world, only fifty ... fifty! ... sites on the World Wide Web. Today there are 20 million or so and rising. In seven and a half years!" -- President Clinton, speaking to a group of Nigerian businessmen. Coincidence, or "The Clinton Prosperity"? You be the judge.

"I'm like the eighth wonder of the world." -- Gore campaign manager Donna Brazile, the ninth wonder being that she's still employed.

"The world is a system, not a collection of individuals." -- Vice President Gore, who is a system, not an individual, in an interview with The New Yorker.

"Stay out the Bushes! Stay out the Bushes!" -- Rev. Jesse Jackson, leading an ebonic cheer at the Democratic Party convention.

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"We're going to have a very stark choice in this election between me and my opponent at the presidential level as to whether we continue the policies that have worked or we go a different direction." -- Senate candidate Hillary Clinton, having delusions of grandeur, as usual.

"Take the A-word out of the platform." -- a billboard posted by Republicans for Choice, who can't even bring themselves to say the word.

"I can't imagine how it would help America to get in the habit of indicting former politicians." -- former politician Newt Gingrich, who sounds as if he may have another surprise for us.

"I'd want to think about it." -- Al Gore, asked by NBC's Tim Russert whether women on death row should be executed while pregnant.

"Obviously, the president probably has more experience than any living human being about how deep in the gutter some people can go." -- White House spokesman Joe Lockhart

"We are still one of the most violent nations in the world." -- Attorney General Janet Reno, most of whose investigations have been directed by Sam Peckinpah.

"Private corporations produce most of the wealth in the world." -- an apparently surprised U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

"History will show itself to be grateful for the effort and the fortitude and, I hope, mindful of the sacrifices that he [Clinton] has made." -- alleged comedian Bill Maher, host of ABC's "Politically Incorrect", speaking at a Democratic Party fundraiser.

"No one is more full of himself, or, for that matter, more full, than Rush Limbaugh." -- hair fluffing, elbow-patch wearing, alleged comedian and intellectual Dennis Miller, gloating over being selected over Limbaugh as an analyst for Monday Night Football.

"School sponsorship of a religious message is impermissible because it sends the ancillary message to members of the audience who are nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community." -- Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, discovering a constitutional right to not have hurt feelings.

"[It's] laughable that the U.S. considers itself the land of opportunity. How can you be truly free when there is so much poverty and poor education?" -- actor Patrick Stewart (a.k.a., Capt. Jean-Luc Picard), who needs someone to run a level-one diagnostic on him.

"These are dedicated, loyal Americans." -- "security czar" Eugene Habiger, on the employees at the Los Alamos lab ... but what about their bosses?

"There will be accountability and disciplinary action." -- Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, on the disappearance of two computer hard drives from a vault at Los Alamos. The janitors at the lab better start working on their resumes.

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"I remember the system, the computer system, breaking down and losing three days of e-mail. I remember asking them, 'What in the world happened?' and it was in the nature of saying, 'Please don't let that happen again.'" -- Vice President and technological marvel Al Gore.

"Where else in the world could you stand on a corner and have people yell, 'Go home' in every language? Sixty-seven languages in Queens alone -- Hillary Clinton, being as funny as John Rocker, at a dinner attended by New York reporters and politicians.

"American soldiers fought and died in two World Wars to defend democracy and win the global struggle against fascism. And, for the last half of the Twentieth Century, in Korea and Vietnam and throughout the dark decades of the Cold War, our Army shielded the free world from the forces of communism and ensured the triumph of democracy." -- President Clinton, who, nevertheless, loathes them.

"I don't believe law enforcement yet has the resources needed to track down and to punish those who hurt women, with the full force of the law." -- Hillary Clinton, not considering that the resources needed may have been twelve more votes in the Senate.

"By voting to slash investments that empower Americans to work harder, smarter and safer, the House Appropriations Committee says 'no' to the 13 million Americans who are not sharing in our economic prosperity." -- Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman, perhaps the only person in America who has seen "investments" in government cause people to work harder.

"A little bit of competition is fine, but with musical chairs the competition is not fair because it is always the biggest and strongest children who win. Musical statues is better because everybody wins -- Sue Finch, author of "Towards a Non-violent society."

"This [Cuba] is the freest country in the world." -- Fidel Castro. Well, it sure couldn't have cost anything.

"I got a friend [Buddy, the dog]. He sleeps with me when Hillary's not here. He's my true friend. We have a great time." -- President Clinton, telling us more than we need to know, for a change.

"I'm still working on my legacy." -- President Clinton, figuring it's about time he started thinking of himself.

"We are not in Sierra Leone to fight..." -- UN General Vijay Kumar Jetley, who was somehow surprised by the abduction of 92 of his "peacekeepers."

"I cannot and will not, as the price for any endorsement, embrace or excuse those who use hateful rhetoric to separate and divide." -- Hillary Clinton, who has embraced the stuffings out of Al Sharpton, explaining why she would not seek an endorsement from Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan.

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"Though many of your ancestors gave up fighting and gave up land and water and mineral rights in exchange for peace, security, health care and education, the federal government did not live up to its end of the deal." -- President Clinton, who probably really believes that the Indians gave up land in exchange for health care, explaining to a group of Navajos why they should trust the government.

"The fact that the Pentagon is supporting the moral majority is like supporting the Nazis that deny people their human rights. -- "Oral Majority" spokesman Bob Kunst, whose thoughts originate from no deeper than the orifice for which his organization is named.

"I would like just once to see someone acknowledge the fact that this Whitewater thing was a lie and a fraud from the beginning." -- President Clinton, not realizing that the jury which convicted the McDougals and Gov. Tucker had acknowledged exactly that.

"This is not about locking lands up, it is about freeing them up for all Americans at all times." --President Clinton, "freeing" 328,000 acres of land in California, by creating yet another monument to himself.

"We have to stop the psychobabble about the KGB thing." -- Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, trying to assuage concerns over Russian President Vladimir Putin's career in Soviet espionage.

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"It's a blind procedure. You're putting instruments inside where you can't see." --Eileen Schnitger of the Feminist Women's Health Center, arguing that abortionist Bruce Steir should not be jailed for killing one of his patients. For the record, Ms. Schnitger favors keeping abortion safe, legal and blind.

"[Y]ou have the right-wing venom machine all geared up against her again." -- President Clinton, on Hillary's Senate campaign against Rudolph Giuliani. Apparently, "venom machine" has recently polled better than "conspiracy."

"I believe that it is accurate to say that we had turned over everything that had been found." -- President Clinton, on the "misplaced" White House e-mails. Found by whom, he didn't specify.

"I'm confident that whatever's the right thing to do, we'll do." -- President Clinton, later in the same press conference, being confident, but for some reason not sure, that he'll do the right thing, whatever that is.

"Men like Dick Gephardt are the vaccines we receive to fight the virus being spread by politicians who use their power and influence to try to define what art is." -- actor Kevin Spacey. Earth to Spacey: Men like Dick Gephardt are the ones defining what art is, so that they can spend our money on it!

"I know I may be an imperfect messenger for this cause." -- Al Gore, upon the unveiling of his campaign finance reform plan, humbly admitting that he's not perfect, just because he's broken a law or two.

"I would look for Justices of the Supreme Court who understand that our Constitution is a living and breathing document, that it was intended by our founders to be interpreted in light of the constantly evolving experience of the American people. The right of privacy, just to take one example, was found by Justice Blackmun in the Constitution, even though the precise words are not there." -- Al Gore, an expert at finding things that aren't there.

"I don't agree with everything Reverend Sharpton has said or done, but I think he has grown." -- Bill Bradley, who has done all he can to help the racist, anti-Semitic fraud grow into a genuine political force.

"We need more psychologists and guidance counselors in schools." -- Al Gore, explaining how he would prevent school shootings.

"I began to see that life is not all good, not all bad, that individuals are not all good, all bad. But we have both in each of us, and that's what makes us human." -- Bill Bradley, perhaps interviewing to become a school counselor.

"If there were a matter of human life here, I would be totally opposed." -- Sen. Arlen Specter(R-Pa.), justifying his support for embryonic stem cell research.

"If they don't get it from me, they get it from someone else." -- longtime Clinton friend and Clinton-Gore fundraiser Yah Lin "Charlie" Trie, explaining his role in the sale of biological weapon-making equipment to China.

"It [The Hurricane] is as accurate as any movie about anybody that has ever been made." -- former boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, to Pittsburgh sportscaster Stan Savran. The biographical film features one character, a racist detective, who was completely fabricated, as well as a fight scene between Carter and Joey Giardello which is so distant from reality that Giardello is suing for defamation.

"I'm just like Luke Skywalker trying to get out of the Death Star. They're shooting at me from everywhere. Everybody's against me -- Governor Engler, Governor Bush, all the governors, all the senators. But we're going to kill 'em." -- John McCain, perhaps planning a defection to the Reform Party.

"I view it [education] as beginning at birth, extending through every life stage and being for everyone. That is why I make a major investment in the first four years of life so that kids will have early education." -- Bill Bradley, who apparently believes brains are implanted in children as they pass through the birth canal.

"A few years ago, Public Enemy famously played this stage. And so I'm going to paraphrase Chuck D. and ask why is it that you have been able to reach the bourgeoisie, but not rock the boulevard?" -- Tamala Edwards of Time magazine, speaking for America's gangster-rapping Marxist constituency, in a question to Sen. Bradley during the Feb. 21 Harlem debate.

"Your main pitfall is exaggeration....The main point is to be careful not to overstate your role." -- from a recently discovered 1988 memo to presidential candidate Al Gore, from his press secretary, Arlie Schardt.

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"Whether it was love or lust, rape or romance, no one knows." -- Jefferson Memorial Foundation President Daniel Jordan, on the relation between Thomas Jefferson and slave Sally Hemings, as quoted in USA Today "Cover Story" from Jan. 27. The less-than-subtle message: being a possible rapist does not preclude one from being a great president.

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"American people are going to begin to realize that perhaps they are going to have to yield some sovereignty to an international body to enforce world law." -- Walter Cronkite, who is known to liberals as "the most trusted man in America," in a recent BBC interview.

"I don't think you could put a price tag on human life." -- famously pro-abortion New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman, on the need to install sprinklers in college dormitories.

"You know, 10,000 or 20,000 years from now, if the good Lord lets us all survive as a human race, no one will remember who set aside this land on this day, but the children will still enjoy it." -- the ever-modest President Clinton, using reverse psychology to present his latest million-acre land seizure as the foundation of The Clinton Legacy.

"This is an act of humility for all of us."-- President Clinton, continuing to plead with his audience not to embarrass lil'-ol'-him with too much adulation for "protecting" his latest "monument."

"I think that a lot of the things that he has said he knows downright aren't true, and I feel bad for him, because I think you pay a terrible price when you do that over and over again," -- President Clinton, about former adviser Dick Morris, who apparently hasn't done it over enough times to get away with what the President did.

"If I could think a way constitutionally, I would ban negative ads."-- more positive thinking from Sen. John McCain.

"I'm praying, of course, that Hillary will win. If she doesn't -- Lord, I'll have to call Revlon again -- Vernon Jordan. 

"I think the Chinese will, in fact, be bending over backwards to make sure they run it [the Panama Canal] in a competent and able and fair manner. This is like them, like China coming into the WTO. I think they'll want to demonstrate to a distant part of the world that they can be a responsible partner, and I would be very surprised if any adverse consequences flowed from the Chinese running the canal." -- President Clinton. So it's no longer paranoid to think the Chinese are taking over the Panama Canal. It's only paranoid if you think that's a bad thing.

Harumph '07

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