2005

"[T]here is no reason ... that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children ... " -- Sen. John "How Dare You Question My Patriotism" Kerry, being as loyal to his fellow American soldiers as usual.

"I reject a rigid timetable that the terrorists can exploit, and I reject an open timetable that has no ending attached to it." -- Sen. Hillary Clinton, being her usual decisive self.

"You [Americans] who have used nuclear weapons against innocent people, who have used uranium ordinance in Iraq, should be tried as war criminals in courts." -- Iranian "president" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, doing his best impression of Noam Chomsky, or any other American college professor you could pick out at random.

"This is just the tip of the iceburg [sic], so to speak, but it's a tidbit that might help you out." -- a form e-mail sent to The Shinbone and many other publications over Thanksgiving weekend, by assorted ninnies.

"In losing a woman, the court with [Samuel] Alito would feature seven white men, one white woman and a black man, who deserves an asterisk because he arguably does not represent the views of mainstream black Americans." -- an editorial in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which is playing the role of Sylvester McMonkey McBean, placing stars upon thars that don't represent the views of the liberal news media.

"In the last five years, there's been a dramatic and disturbing and radical change in the values of this country." -- former president Jimmy Carter, who would like to return to the values embodied by President Distinguishing Characteristic.

"I believed we needed a network of global cooperation. As we see in Iraq, it's very difficult to solve complex problems when we are essentially alone." -- former president Bill Clinton, employing the same creative definition of "alone" that he used in his grand jury testimony.

"Party trumps race, especially on the national level." -- Maryland state senator Lisa Gladden, excusing racist attacks against Republican gubernatorial candidate Michael Steele, who has recently been pelted with Oreo cookies, and depicted as a minstrel show character on a left-wing blog.

"We're an ignorant nation right now. We're not really capable, I do not think the majority of our people, of making the decisions that have to be made at election time and particularly in the selection of their legislatures and their Congress and the presidency, of course." -- Walter "Pinko" Cronkite, advocating totalitarianism, as usual.

"It is the first time in my life I have been ashamed of my country." -- National Public Radio's Nina Totenberg, who has been ashamed of her country from the second she was born up until now, but only once.

"How many people could turn against the United States of America when they hear that we are torturing people?" -- Sen. John McCain (R, Ariz.), who himself is telling the world that we are torturing people, when he doesn't know any such thing.

"I think it's very important that Americans understand, you know, tax cuts are always popular, but about half of these tax cuts since 2001 have gone to people in my income group, the top one percent. They're responsible for this big structural deficit, and they're not going away, the deficits aren't." -- former president Bill Clinton, who, if he really thought he was paying too little in taxes, could stop taking deductions for his used underwear.

"If you give your tax cuts to the rich and hope everything works out all right, and poverty goes up, and it disproportionately affects black and brown people, that's a consequence of the action made. That's what they did in the 80s. That's what they've done in this decade." -- former president Bill Clinton, lying as usual about the effects of Reaganomics, which in fact resulted in declining poverty rates for every year throughout the Gipper's presidency.

"In the middle [i.e., between Republican administrations], we had a different policy. We concentrated tax cuts on lower income working people and benefits to low-income people that helped them move from welfare to work, and we moved 100 times as many people out of poverty." -- former president Bill Clinton, making up statistics while forgetting that he reneged on his promised tax cuts, and that the he twice vetoed welfare reform before finally signing it in order to save his re-election.

"I will take enlightenment wherever I can get it. I don't want to stop at a national boundary." -- Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, defending her use of foreign precedents in deciding cases, by explaining that she feels restricted by the expectation that she adhere to the laws of the land.

"As all of us saw on television, there is also some deep, persistent poverty in this region as well. And that poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination." -- President Bush, doing his best LBJ impression, while speaking in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

"George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self [sic] from power. The only way America will become more secure is if we have a new administration that cares about Americans even if they don't fall into the top two percent of the wealthiest." -- "Gold Star Mother for Peace" Cindy Sheehan, who has "absolute moral authority," writing for MichaelMoore.com.

"Would you think that Roe might be a super-duper precedent?" -- Sen. Arlen Specter (R, Pa.), who can leap logic in a single bound, traveling light years beyond Scotland in search of constitutional support for abortion on demand, during the John Roberts confirmation hearings.

"I heard from a very reliable source who saw a 25-foot deep crater under the levee breach. It may have been blown up to destroy the black part of town and keep the white part dry." -- Louis Farrakhan, whose "reliable source" is now hovering over the Bering Strait, manning the controls of the Mother Wheel.

"The more I think about it, definitely race played into this [the response to Hurricane Katrina]" -- New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, who, the more he thinks about it, wants to absolve himself of all responsibility.

"Many black people feel that their race, their property conditions and their voting patterns have been a factor in the response [to Hurricane Katrina]" -- Jesse Jackson, failing to point out that the "many black people" he's referring to are himself and his fellow racial scab-pickers.

"Emotions in this country right now are running very high. Sometimes that emotion is translated into inspiration, sometimes into criticism. We've heard some of that tonight. But it's still part of the American way of life." -- NBC's Matt Lauer, elevating rapper Kanye West's demented, Farrakhanian tirade to the level of "criticism," at a celebrity telethon for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

"I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family it says they are looting, if you see a white family it says they are looking for food. And you know it's been five days because most of the people are black ... We already realize a lot of the people that could help are at war now fighting another way, and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us ... George Bush doesn't care about black people." -- rapper, and according to Time magazine the "smartest man in pop music," Kanye West, waiting for the Mother Wheel to come and take him away.

"... a political and social welfare organization with a military wing" -- ABC News reporter Mike Lee, describing Hamas, as quoted by the Media Research Center.

"The people around here, you can't get them to come out and do nothing unless you're giving them something." -- Gerri Robinson, who wrote flyers promising "Free Cheese" for those who would "Come Out + Vote" in Philadelphia's primary elections, according to an August 1^st BusinessWeek magazine report.

"Sometimes you can see how there is erosion, and you can see how there is deforestation. It's very widespread in some parts of the world. ... We would like to see, from the astronauts' point of view, people take good care of the Earth and replace the resources that have been used. ... The atmosphere almost looks like an eggshell, it's so very thin. We know that we don't have much air. We need to protect what we have." -- Commander Eileen Collins aboard the space shuttle Discovery, probably also worrying that all the people in the world had turned into little ants.

"What the propagandists on the Right have done is make people afraid to say they're Democrats." -- DNC Chairman Howard "Why Do I Say These Things" Dean, trying his hardest to deflect the blame elsewhere.

"They didn't win, and I got that from the white press. At four o'clock that evening, the white press said from the exit polls that Kerry had won by a landslide, and then three hours later, something funny happened." -- alleged comedian Dick Gregory, accidentally being funnier than he's tried to be in decades.

"I honestly hear the word 'goddess' attached to her [Hillary Clinton]" -- CNN reporter Candy Crowley, who must have been listening to the producer in her earpiece at the time.

"Bolton Must Compromise With Diplomats" -- a brief editorial, posing as a headline from an Associated Press story.

"I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A." -- former president Jimmy Carter, who's considerably more fond of what's going on elsewhere in Cuba.

"Someone brought up today the first several U.S. presidents were certainly revolutionaries and might have been called terrorists at the time by the British crown, after all." -- NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, who is certainly a liberal and might have been called something else, after all.

"[T]he Americans recruited and trained Osama bin Laden, taught him how to kill, to make bombs, and set him off to kill the Russians to drive them out of Afghanistan. They didn't give any thought to the fact that once he'd done that, he might turn on his creators." -- London mayor "Red" Ken Livingstone, who derives his knowledge of foreign affairs from George Michael videos.

"If you're a Democrat and you have sort of normal impulses, you're a sellout, like when Hillary said abortion is a tragedy for virtually everybody who undergoes it, we ought to do all we can to reduce abortion. All of a sudden, 'Is she selling out? Is she abandoning her principles?' But if John McCain, who's pro-life, works with Hillary on global warming, he's a man of principle moving to the middle." -- Bill Clinton, comparing apples to parakeets in a speech to a liberal student organization.

"Terrorism in the United States is as old as we are ... We are terrorists ... The chickens have come home to roost ... George W. Bush is evil. He is a terrorist. He is evil. He is arrogant, and he is out of control." -- USA Today columnist Julianne Malveaux, in a radio interview with Sean Hannity.

"You know, when you stop to think about it, if you had a justice on the Supreme Court who got only 51 votes, that's not a very good signal to the rest of the country." -- Sen. Patrick Leahy (D, Vt.), who is considerably less worried about the signal sent to the rest of the country by liberal judges revoking citizens' property rights.

"CBS News has a culture, has a history that for those of us who work here is very real, that we see it as a sort of a magical, mystical kingdom of journalistic knights." -- Dan Rather, quoted by the Media Research Center from an appearance on "Topic A with Tina Brown," apparently explaining how it is that he can still believe in those National Guard memos.

"I went back and reread the whole New Testament the other day." -- Sen. John Kerry (D, Mass.), who must have read it the first time in helping the Cambodians to celebrate Christmas.

"We are witnessing a collision between our civilization and the Earth." -- former vice president Al Gore, failing to realize that all of us, with the possible exception of himself, have been on the Earth all along.

"All of us know this war will not end in our lifetime." -- Sen. Patrick Leahy (D, Vt.), making what he must hope will be a self-fulfilling prophecy, while criticizing our soldiers at Guantanamo Bay for having the gall to actually imprison the enemy.

"Terri Schiavo died of the effects of a profound and prolonged lack of oxygen to her brain on a day in 1990 ... " -- an absolutely false lead in a June 15^th Washington Post story by David Brown and William Branigin, who failed to notice its contradiction of medical examiner John Thogmartin's conclusion -- which they quoted in the same story -- that "she died of marked dehydration."

"Guantanamo has not made our country safer. It is increasingly clear that the administration's policies have seriously damaged our reputation in the world and that they are making us less safe. The stain of Guantanamo has become the primary recruiting tool for our enemies." -- Sen. Patrick Leahy (D, Vt.), whose own stain of guano has aided the terrorists at least as much as any fabricated claims of abuse at Guantanamo Bay.

"I would make the argument that America is safer when Democrats are in the White House than when Republicans are in the White House." -- former vice-presidential candidate John Edwards, whom we can trust is not actually going to get around to making that argument anytime soon.

"What does Janice Rogers Brown want to be nominated for, dictator? Or grand exulted ruler? Please." -- Sen. Dick Durbin (D, Ill.), who would gladly vote to confirm the Circuit Court appointee if he really thought that was the case.

"Guantanamo has become the gulag of our time." -- Amnesty International secretary-general Irene Khan, who hasn't lost her flair for demagoguery since hyping up the "Jenin massacre" in 2002.

"I'm afraid that when we go to the well [of the Senate], that too many of my colleagues are not going to understand that this appointment is very, very important to our country. At a strategic time, when we need friends all over the world, we need somebody up there that's going to be able to get the job done. I know some of my friends say, 'Let it go, George, it's going to work out.' I don't want to take the risk. I came back here and ran for a second term because I'm worried about my kids and my grandchildren. And I just hope my colleagues will take the time, and before they get to this well, do some serious thinking about whether or not we should send John Bolton to the United Nations." -- a weepy Sen. George Voinovich (RINO, Ohio), explaining his opposition to the nomination of John Bolton as ambassador to the UN, because continuing to have American interests obstructed by that corrupt organization is somehow good for The Children.

"We will try to do everything in our power to prevent filibusters in the future." -- Sen. John McCain (RINO, Ariz.), after cutting a deal to prevent a Senate rule change that would have prevented the future filibustering of judicial nominations.

"In 2006, Senator Byrd will be the target of Republicans because he stands up for what he believes." -- Sen. Barack Obama (D, Ill.), currently the only black member of the U.S. Senate, in a fundraising letter for former KKK recruiter Robert Byrd (D, W.Va.).

"The United States is no longer the dominant power on earth as we have been the last fifty years. That's good news, I think." -- "maverick" Sen. Chuck Hagel (R, Neb.), whose cerebrum is no longer the dominant power in his noggin.

"Black leaders are anointed by God and the masses of our people." -- Al Sharpton, who, since he couldn't become president, has settled for Ayatollah.

"This was never intended, in any sense, to be a majoritarian institution." -- Sen. Joseph Biden (D, Del.), who was a bit more of a stickler for counting the votes when his party was in control.

"First and foremost, it is worth ackowledging that the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century." -- Russian president Vladmir Putin.

"The images of cruelty and perversion are still difficult to look at a year later." -- Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, Mass.), referring to Abu Ghraib prison, not to an Easter weekend at the Kennedy Compound.

"The issue is, are we going to live in a theocracy where the highest powers tell us what to do, or are we going to be allowed to consult our own high powers when we make very difficult decisions?" -- Democratic National Committee chairman Howard "Why Do I Say These Things" Dean, defending Michael Schiavo's decision to kill his wife, which he really didn't find very difficult at all.

"Do you sodomize your wife?" -- a New York University student, no doubt making his professors proud, at a Q&A session with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

"Last year, too many people were denied their right to vote. Too many who tried to vote were intimidated." -- election loser John Kerry, who also saw disenfranchised voters who had their ears cut off, wires from portable telephones taped to their genitals, limbs blown off, and bodies blown up, in a manner reminiscent of Zhenjiss Khan.

"Though the members of this group are whiter than the audience at a Capitol Steps concert, the new Minutemen say there's no racist intent behind their quest to plug a 26-mile hole in a section of Arizona's underbelly." -- Pittsburgh Tribune-Review columnist Mike Seate, implying that whiteness (however he measures that) is usually synonymous with racism.

"As you may know, Terri Schiavo has been in a persistent vegetative state since 1990 with zero chance of recovery. When Republicans intervened into a private family dispute to get the Schiavo case heard in federal court, do you think they did so because they fervently believe in a religious-right ideology that favors prolonging life, no matter what the cost or consequences? Or are they seeking to please their own extremely religious right-wing base? -- possibly the most biased poll question ever asked (and that's really saying something), by CBS News and the New York Times, as reported by the Media Research Center

"I support Michael Schiavo and freedom of medical choice!" -- a demonstrator outside the hospice where Terri Schiavo was chosen by her husband to be "medically" killed by forced starvation and dehydration.

"The conflict in Iraq can be told in numbers and milestones, from the more than 1,500 U.S. troops who now have died to the number of weapons of mass destruction found -- zero." -- Tom Raum of the Associated Press, in a front-page editorial labeled an "analysis," trying to cast doubt on our victory in Iraq, while miscalculating the number of WMD found by 100 percent.

"It's called the haves giving a little more to the have-nots." -- actor and once-rumored presidential candidate Warren Beatty, trying to make socialism sound voluntary.

"It appears that no rational purpose exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite sex partners." -- San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer, making a rare and unsuccessful attempt by a liberal judge to appear rational.

"Our aim should be to select excellent judges, acceptable across a wide spectrum of political views." -- Sen. Robert Byrd (D, W.Va.), whose fellow Democrats call him the "guardian of the Constitution," but who fails to realize that it's not the Senate's role to "select" judges.

"That our understanding of the Constitution does change from time to time has been settled since John Marshall first breathed life into its text." -- Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, explaining how worthless the Constitution was until the first judicial activist came along.

"For the temporary gain of a handful of out-of-the-mainstream judges, some in the Senate are ready to callously incinerate every senator's right of extended debate. Hitler never abandoned the cloak of legality. He never abandoned the cloak of legality. He recognized the enormous psychological value of having the law on his side. Instead, he turned the law inside out and made this illegality legal. And that is what the nuclear option seeks to do. Minorities have an illustrious past, full of suffering, torture, smear, and even death. Jesus Christ was killed by a majority. Columbus was smeared. Christians have been tortured." -- Sen. Robert Byrd (D, W.Va.), who's got a point there, right at the top of his hood.

"Now just imagine you worked at the Gap. You're $70 trillion behind on your register, and then you start a war with Banana Republic, cause you say they got toxic tank tops over there. You have the war. People are dying. A thousand Gap employees are dead. That's right, bleeding all over the khakis. You finally take over Banana Republic and you find out they never made tank tops in the first place." -- alleged comedian Chris Rock, showing off his geopolitical expertise to the audience at the Academy Awards. And to think they said he wouldn't fit in with that crowd.

"People are beginning to think that your illness may have affected your brain." -- law professor and Democrat talking head Susan Estrich, making light of Los Angeles Times editorial page editor Michael Kinsley's Parkinson's disease, because he wouldn't publish enough feminist op-ed writers to suit her.

"To call it Islamic terror is discriminating. It's bigoted. It's not the right thing to say." -- Rep. Charles Rangel (D, N.Y.), who's more interested in monitoring offensive speech than in correctly identifying our enemies.

"You think the Republican National Committee could get this many people of color in a single room? Only if they had the hotel staff in here." -- new Democratic National Committee chairman Howard "Why Do I Say These Things" Dean, speaking to the Congressional Black Caucus.

"Back on September 11^th, terrorists attacked our metropolitan cores, two of America's great cities. They did that because they knew that was where they could do the most damage and weaken us the most. Years later, we are given a budget proposal by our Commander-in-Chief, the President of the United States. And with a budget axe, he is attacking America's cities. He is attacking our metropolitan core." -- Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, who thinks there's a devious terrorist plot to control domestic federal spending.

"I am the mother of a 12 year-old girl, and I can tell you unequivocally that if my daughter was pregnant, I would take her kicking and screaming to have an abortion." -- British actress Ellen Barkin, star of the pro-abortion propaganda film "Vera Drake" offering a curious definition of "choice" to the audience at the Venice Film Festival.

"This country [Cuba] is heaven, in the spiritual sense of the word." -- Fidel Castro, who must get that impression from being surrounded by the ghosts of his victims.

"When does pornography cross the line and become obscene?" -- Seattle Community Access Network content review board member Harlan Snyder, who seems to prefer that non-obscene pornography.

"George W. Bush is unelectable, in my opinion." -- liberal radio host and alleged comedienne Janeane Garofalo on MSNBC, shortly after the recently re-elected President Bush was inaugurated.

"As for those in the World Trade Center, well really, let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break." -- An essay by a Colorado University professor of a sort, named Ward Churchill. He is the chairman of that school's "ethnic studies" department ... although you'd probably already guessed he hasn't wasted much time in any legitimate academic field. You've surely also guessed that he's no relation to Winnie.

"The U.S. military presence [in Iraq] has become part of the problem, not part of the solution." -- Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, Mass.), the "problem" apparently being his party's dwindling numbers in Congress.

"Our military and the insurgents are fighting for the same thing -- the hearts and minds of the people, and that is a battle we are not winning." -- Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, Mass.), who thinks the Iraqi people share his preference for terrorists over American soldiers.

"We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology." -- a tape purportedly recorded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, validating the Bush Doctrine.

"I came here as a slave. I now want the right to vote." -- Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D, Texas), who must be at least 197 years old.

"I want to make it clear, I'm not challenging President Bush's victory in the state of Ohio." -- Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D, N.J.), who was nevertheless objecting to the counting of Ohio's electoral votes.

"I want it to be clear that I do not question the legitimacy or outcome of the 2004 presidential election, nor will I vote to overturn the result of the vote in Ohio." -- Sen. Tom Harkin (D, Iowa), who was nevertheless objecting to the counting of Ohio's electoral votes.

"I am absolutely convinced that the President of the United States won this election. I also believe that he got more votes in Ohio." -- Sen Barak Obama (D, Ill.), who was nevertheless objecting to the counting of Ohio's electoral votes.

Harumph '07

Harumph '06

Harumph '04

Harumph '03

Harumph '02

Harumph '01

Harumph '00

Harumph '99

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