Quote du jour

"I do not understand how living in a country with its democracy established over 200 years ago, and now, for the first time in history, suddenly we have a former president, Barack Obama, set up a group called "Organizing for Action" (OFA). OFA is 30, 000+ strong and working to disrupt everything that our current president's administration is trying to do. This organization goes against our Democracy, and it is an operation that will destroy our way of governing. It goes against our Constitution, our laws, and the processes established over 200 years ago. If it is allowed to proceed then we will be living in chaos very much like third world countries are run. What good is it to have an established government if it is not going to be respected and allowed to follow our laws?"

-Charles Krauthammer

Quote du jour

"To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law:
Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil."

-Charles Krauthammer

Quote du jour

"But, oh the glory! You know with the White House on fire, Congress in chaos, and the world going to Hell in a hand basket, we need happy news like this. This is why God created baseball late on the sixth day."

-Charles Krauthammer

The Krauthammer Ten

There's been talk of replacing Alexander Hamilton on the ten. May I make a modest suggestion?

Quote du jour

"I never wanted to make myself the focus of my career. One of the things I aspired to in all of my columns, is I try never to use the word "I". A lot of columnists write the word "I" all the time, and to me, every time you use it is a failure.
But the point of what I do, I left medicine to do, is to put ideas in the right order and hopefully to convince people of certain things that I believe in very passionately."

-Charles Krauthammer

Quote du jour

There's a kind of Providential nature to American history. When we needed a Lincoln, we got one. That saved the Republic. In the twentieth century, when we needed an FDR and we got an FDR, and in the second half, we needed a Reagan, we got a Reagan.

-Charles Krauthammer

Quote du jour

"I have a horror of the blank page. But once I'm editing it's like a puzzle, and I like doing puzzles."

-Charles Krauthammer

Quote du jour

"Which is why my default view of espionage is to never believe anyone because everyone is trained in deception. This is not a value judgement; it's a job description."

-Charles Krauthammer

Quote du jour

What becomes of “land for peace” if the territories that Israel was to have traded for peace are, in advance, declared to be Palestinian land to which Israel has no claim?

-Charles Krauthammer

Quote du jour

"The West's retreat began with Obama, who reacted to (perceived) post-9/11 overreach by abandoning Iraq, offering appeasement ("reset") to Russia and accommodating Iran. In 2009, he refused even rhetorical support to the popular revolt against the rule of the ayatollahs."

-Charles Krauthammer

"I Think it’s Baked In" - Mr. Language Person

"I think it’s baked in"

-Charles Krauthammer

The great Charles Krauthammer succumbing to the latest trendy, overused turn of phrase: 'It’s baked in'.

I think I heard it the first time a week or two ago. Someone was discussing one of the candidates and said that this thing or that thing about the candidate was 'baked in'. It seemed rather clever, self evident... a different way of expressing the fact that something was 'part and parcel' of another. Not bad. Or, as some might say, "It's not a bug it's a feature!"

But then a second person used it. And another. And another. Until it seemed as if some pundit every hour on the hour was describing something inherent to some person or policy as 'baked in'. And then the mighty Krauthammer piles on! Actually, I was hoping to use the magical 'baked in' buzz phrase myself one day, but too late! It has already become a cliché. Let me be the first to pronounce it trite, if I'm not able to celebrate its passing.

Now I'm not one of those guys who call for certain words or phrases to be banned. This one is clever and deserves its place in the sun. Maybe above the Arctic Circle where the sun doesn't shine for six months?

All I'm asking for is a little restraint. If you use the phrase 'baked in' to describe something inherent in a person, place, or thing, mark it on your calendar, and three to six months from now, see if you can work it into the conversation again. Is that too much to ask?

Unless, of course, it's already baked into the language!

Quote du jour

Donald Trump, the man who defied every political rule and prevailed to win his party’s nomination, last week took on perhaps the most sacred political rule of all: Never attack a Gold Star family. Not just because it alienates a vital constituency but because it reveals a shocking absence of elementary decency and of natural empathy for the most profound of human sorrows — parental grief.

-Charles Krauthammer

Quotes du jour

"I believe in an America always moving toward the future."

-Hillary Clinton

"Surely there cannot be a more vacuous, meaningless piece of political rhetoric. Every terrestrial entity from nematode to the United States of America moves forward into the future quite on its own, thank you. Where else is there to go?"

-Charles Krauthammer

Quote du jour

"Perhaps (Obama) having long seen himself uniquely qualified by background and history to make peace between Islam and the West, to now recognize how badly things have gone on his watch is to admit both failure and the impossible grandiosity of his original pretensions."

-Charles Krauthammer

Quote du jour

"Remarkably, he (Trump) gives a speech that's now written and that he reads off a telerompter that is as wandering and meandering and incoherent as when he speaks off the cuff."

-Charles Krauthammer

Quote du jour

You could put the Sanders, Clinton and Cruz foreign policies on a recognizable ideological spectrum, left to right. But not Trump’s. It inhabits a different space because it lacks any geopolitical coherence. It’s all about money. He sees no particular purpose for allies or foreign bases. They are simply a financial drain.

- Charles Krauthammer

Quote du jour

What a comfort to be pulverized by 60 to 90 Russian airstrikes each day but to know that Belgium is with you.

-Charles Krauthammer, on Obama's coalition to support non Islamic State rebels

Quote du jour

"If it had the wit, the Obama administration would not be angered, but appropriately humiliated."

- Charles Krauthammer, on Syria

Quote du jour

Birthright citizenship is a symptom, not a cause. If you regain control of the border, the number of birthright babies fades to insignificance. The time and energy it would take to amend the Constitution are far more usefully deployed securing the border. Moreover, the real issue is not the birthright babies themselves, but the chain migration that follows. It turns one baby into an imported village. Chain migration, however, is not a constitutional right. It’s a result of statutes and regulations. These can be readily changed. That should be the focus, not a quixotic constitutional battle.

-Charles Krauthammer

Quote du jour

(Reagan was) "...so self possessed, so sure of who he was that he never had to show himself to be the 'smartest guy in the room'."

-Charles Krauthammer

Compare and contrast.