Quotes of the day

By Lee Russ

Saturday, September 16, 2006 at 03:31 PM

From a letter writer to an editorial to a book reviewer to a Joe Scarborough column...

Rumsfeld's tactics don't just undermine us, they degrade us. The question isn't who would replace him, but rather who couldn't? Considering the sterling job he has done for us, even Donald Duck could do better.

Michele Margetts, in a 9/14 letter to the Salt Lake Tribune.

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When President Bush announced in May 2003 that he was appointing L. Paul Bremer as the top U.S. civilian official in Iraq, I received an e-mail from one of his former business colleagues: "I just heard that Jerry [Bremer's nickname] will be running Iraq. And the Iraqis thought that the worst we could do was to bomb them."
At the time, I just smiled and dismissed the message. Three years later, Rajiv Chandrasekaran's extraordinary book made me realize how tragically prescient that e-mail had been.

Moisés Naím, reviewing the new book IMPERIAL LIFE IN THE EMERALD CITY--Inside Iraq's Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran.

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The administration wants authority from Congress to ignore provisions of the Geneva Conventions that prohibit cruel or inhumane treatment of prisoners.

Editorial in today's Des Moines Register.

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it must be tough explaining to voters at their local Baptist church's Keep Congress Conservative Day that it was their party that took a $155 billion surplus and turned it into a record-setting $400 billion deficit.

How exactly does one convince the teeming masses that Republicans deserve to stay in power despite botching a war, doubling the national debt, keeping company with Jack Abramoff, fumbling the response to Hurricane Katrina, expanding the government at record rates, raising cronyism to an art form, playing poker with Duke Cunningham, isolating America and repeatedly electing Tom DeLay as their House majority leader?

Joe Scarborough in a column for tomorrow's Washington Post (the answer, by the way, is blame Bush).