Current Wisdom

“Even Obama refuses to endorse it and back up the California federal court, and now appears suddenly hesitant to impose the values of Fire Island on Parris Island.”—columnist Pat Buchanan on same-sex marriage.

“So there was an Affirmative Action program for communists.”—

Author M. Stanton Evans on Soviet penetration of FDR’s Administration.

“Benjamin Franklin probably would be a Republican if he were alive today.”—

Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution in an appearance at the Cato Institute on September 1, 2010.

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”—

Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird.

Not since the Norman conquerors of England published their laws in French, for an English-speaking nation, centuries ago, has there been such contempt for the people’s right to know what laws were being imposed on them.—Thomas Sowell

“We have an interesting juxtaposition because conservatives have actually become the liberal thinkers because we welcome all kinds of ideas.”

—U. S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, at Capitol Hill press conference on July 28, 2010.

“By proposing to start new programs and expand old programs, President Obama virtually guarantees that more programs will be underresourced.”

—Cato Institute Fellow Jim Powell, on April 12, 2009.

“We are the only great power in history who, upon arriving on a foreign shore, first asks the question ‘what’s the exit strategy?’”

—Dr. Charles Krauthammer at The Fund for American Studies conference in April.

“Conservatives look at leftists and see them as misguided. Liberals look at us and see us as evil.”

—Author and activist David Horowitz at Hillsdale College’s First Fridays, First Principles breakfast on Capitol Hill on July 9, 2010.

“Those who are convinced that the government has to ‘do something’ when the economy has a problem almost never bother to find out what actually happens when the government intervenes.”

—Thomas Sowell

“I was mayor of Cincinatti after Jerry Springer, proving that the sublime sometimes follows the ridiculous.”

—Ken Blackwell, wryly, at AIA June 21, 2010 authors’ night.

“Too many Republicans ran like Ronald Reagan but governed like Jimmy Carter.”

—Ken Blackwell at a June 21, 2010 AIA authors’ night explaining the GOP’s recent reversal of electoral fortunes