Welcome to the last edition of Quote the Ravin'. After a full year of quote compiling I'm calling it quits and moving on to another project. It's bittersweet: although it was a lot of work with not much feedback, I appreciated the few who followed me and I especially liked writing the satirical intros, which I still contend were some of the best on DK.
I was afraid at first of consistency and losing interest in posting. Thankfully, that never happened. The formatting was a bear, but I got used to it. Obviously blogs like Think Progress, Talking Points Memo, Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish and Dave Weigel were a goldmine of content.
To those few of you who came by every week, I thank you. I couldn't have done it without you. I will reach out to some of you and let you know when my project nears going live.
Thanks again. Let's start quotin'.
Not continuing a tax cut is not technically a tax increase.
—Grover Norquist in an editorial in the Washington Post.
It clearly would be a dramatic increase in taxes.
—Grover Norquist, clarifying, err obfuscating what he meant later.
Rick Santorum believes you can only "support" traditional families by beating up on other kinds of families.
—Dan Savage
Voters don't give a shit about the deficit.
—Duncan Black
I am insulted that local TV news crews are now calling this kind of storm a haboob. How do they think our soldiers feel coming back to Arizona and hearing some Middle Eastern term?
—Gilbert, Arizona resident Don Yonts on the term for a dust storm.
What a haboob.
Today I got to be the gunner which was fun. The .50cal is quite a gun! I was never ascared of the unions but they better not F#%k with me again!!! Just saying.
—State Rep.Lynne Blankenbeker (R, NH)
What I said today generically, applying to all candidates, not her, is that anybody who's going to serve as president of the United States, of course, has to be able to do all of the job all of the time, 24/7. That's just common sense.
—Tim Pawlenty on Michele Bachmann's migraines.
Pawlenty's walking back more than moving forward.
I will tell you my favorite food of all time is celery. Honest to God my favorite food is celery. Straight up celery. I will personally consume the entire stalk of celery. At the Thanksgiving table I have the plate of celery in front of me.
—Michele Bachmann.
The celery is strong in this one.
Let's force it now. Let's not raise the debt ceiling to deal with this, as difficult as it's going to be and I don't want to downplay just how difficult it's going to be.
—Gary Johnson
Well, obviously my love, Chris Christie. It's going to be so exciting when he announces.
—Ann Coulter on her favorite candidate.
Oh Goody. These are people who evidently think the political center is between Barack Obama and the Republicans. Think about that for a moment.
—Digby, on the Tea Party.
If you're the leader of the of the free world, would you please come to the microphone and quit hiding in the basement about your proposals and come on up and address the American people? Is he chicken?
—Tim Pawlenty
Says Tim "Obamneycare" Pawlenty
There was a shooting at a political camp, which sounds a little like the Hitler youth, or, whatever. I mean, who does a camp for kids that's all about politics. Disturbing.
—Glenn Beck.
Young political activists have gathered at Utøya for over 60 years to learn about and be part of democracy, the very opposite of what the Hitler Youth was about. Glenn Beck's comments are ignorant, incorrect and extremely hurtful.
—Former Norway press secretary to the Prime Minister Torbjørn Eriksen.
I don’t think there is an anti-jihadist movement anymore. It’s all a bunch of kooks. I’ve watched some people who I thought were reputable, and who I trusted, hook up with racists and Nazis. I see a lot of them promoting stories and causes that I think are completely nuts.
—Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs.
The vindictive part of me wants to blame Geller and her ilk for what happened in Oslo. But then I remember something Abdul Rauf said: "The Quran explicitly states that no soul shall be responsible for the sins of another. Terrorism, which targets innocents who had no part in a crime, fundamentally violates this Quranic commandment." That principle—that no one should be held responsible for another person's sins—is the moral core of the struggle against terrorism. It's the reason I can't pin the slaughter in Norway on bloggers who never advocated sectarian violence. I just wish those bloggers, and the politicians who echo them, would show Muslims the same courtesy.
—William Saletan
If there is a God I will be allowed to enter heaven as all other martyrs for the Church in the past.
—Norweigian mass murderer Anders Breivik
The left wants you to believe that fundamentalist Christians are threat, just like crazy Jihadists are… that is dishonest and insane.
—Bill O'Reilly
Obviously that guy was.
It's not an accident that al-Qaida kills orders of magnitude more Muslims than westerners. Nor is it an accident that Breivik targeted white Norwegians instead of the Muslim immigrants that so stir his ire. For both, the stated grievance is pretextual. "Before we can begin our Crusade," Breivik states, "we must do our duty by decimating Cultural Marxism!"
—Spencer Ackerman.
If you are pulling a news report completely out of your ass, it's safer to go with Muslim. That's not prejudice, that's probability.
—Stephen Colbert.
People will not stop what they’re doing to listen to a lecture about the dangers of dioxin poisoning, or corruption in Pentagon contracting. But they will stop to gawk at a headless body hanging out of the windshield of a wrecked car.
—Matt Taibbi.
Our news is so monotonous, when Rupert Murdoch taps our phones, he just lets the machine pick up.
—Bill Maher
It's so hot that people are standing next to Rupert Murdoch just to be near something shady.
—Jay Leno
While testifying in parliament, Rupert Murdoch was attacked by a man who threw a pie and yelled insulting names. Murdoch immediately gave the man a show on Fox News.
—Conan O'Brien
The Republican presidential candidates held a debate on Twitter. It combined the excitement of C-SPAN with the suspense of typing.
—Jimmy Kimmel