Let's take a stroll through the minds, thoughts and statements of prominent conservatives... to glimpse just what those rascals really believe!

"History will prove me right. This is an exercise in folly."
-- George W. Bush, 1994. As GM of the Texas Rangers baseball club, Bush was the only baseball executive to vote against the plan to allow more teams into the playoffs each year. The change was implemented and has been enormously popular with the fans, and an unprecedented financial success for Major League Baseball. As usual, Bush -- the conservative -- was dead wrong. History will prove him right about nothing of importance.

"This is an impressive crowd - the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elites; I call you my base."
-- George W. Bush. Speaking at a diamond-studded, $800-a-plate fundraiser.

"I'm a uniter, not a divider."
-- George W. Bush. 2000 Presidential campaign. Typical conservative double-speak, as his policies would divide American from American, and America from the world like no president in two generations at least.

"I'm a compassionate conservative."
-- George W. Bush. 2000 Presidential campaign. An interesting statement, implying that this is quite unusual, and a departure from recent conservatives such as Ronald Reagan and Bush's own father. But, alas, it proved to be 180 degrees incorrect... just like much conservative rhetoric. A case could easily be made that George W. Bush has been the least compassionate president in modern American history.

"If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us; if we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us. And our nation stands alone right now in the world in terms of power, and that's why we've got to be humble, and yet project strength in a way that promotes freedom."
-- George W. Bush. 2000 Presidential Debate. Posterity will record, emphatically, that the Bush presidency was one of the least humble and most arrogant in American history... the exact opposite of what he promised as a presidential candidate. And his warnings have come true. Much of the world does now despise the U.S.

"Family is where America finds hope, where wings take dream."
-- George W. Bush. And fly off to sleep?

"There's no question that the minute I got elected, the storm clouds on the horizon were getting nearly directly overhead."
-- George W. Bush. And it only got worse after that.

"Neither in French nor in English nor in Mexican."
-- George W. Bush. Refusing to answer a question in any language... certainly including Mexican.

"They misunderestimate me."
-- George W. Bush. Sorry, George there is no such word as "misunderestimate".

"I've got a record that is conservative, and a record that is compassionated."
-- George W. Bush. Uh, nope, no such word as "compassionated" either.

"I know that human being and fish can co-exist peacefully."
-- George W. Bush. So, no pre-emptive strike on salmon?

"You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test."
-- George W. Bush. Perhaps... but will him make a good President?

"Rarely is the question asked, 'is our children learning?'"
-- George W. Bush. Hopefully not from you, sir. Did you actually ever take English in school, or did Poppy get you out of that, too?

"Mathematics are one of the fundamentaries of educationalizing our youth."
-- George W. Bush. Wow, Mr. President, two completely made-up words and an incorrect verb in the same sentence... a stunning display of fundamental English language incompetence. Most fifth graders would do better.

"I will retire nearly $1 trillion in debt over the next four years. ... the largest debt reduction ever achieved by any nation at any time."
-- George W. Bush, campaign 2000. Instead, Bush has added over $1 trillion in debt... the exact opposite of what he promised. Guess he didn't get educationalized in the fundamentaries of mathmatics all that well at Harvard.

"We expect the states to show us whether or not we're achieving simple objectives—like literacy, literacy in math, the ability to read and write."
-- George W. Bush. And it's a darned good thing you don't have to take the test, right sir?

"I think—tide turning—see, as I remember—I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of—it's easy to see a tide turn—did I say those words?"
-- George W. Bush. Better check with your puppet-master, Dick Cheney.

"There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, 'fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me' -- you can't get fooled again."
-- George W. Bush. Whew, from the mangler-in-chief. The actual old saying is: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

"The most important job is not to be governor, or first lady in my case."
-- George W. Bush. Hello, anyone home?

"I want to thank my friend, Sen. Bill Frist, for joining us today. He married a Texas girl, I want you to know. Karyn is with us. A West Texas girl, just like me."
-- George W. Bush. Lord help us.

"America needs a military where our breast and brightest are proud to serve."
-- George W. Bush. What's really on your mind there, sir?

"Too many OB-GYNs are not able to practice their love with women all over this country."
-- George W. Bush. Hmmm, a trend is developing.

"This is historic times."
-- George W. Bush. Yes, they is... as is most times.

"One year ago today, the time for excuse-making has come to an end."
-- George W. Bush. Excuse me?

"We need an energy bill that encourages consumption."
-- George W. Bush. Well yeah... anything to keep those oil prices as high as possible for you oilmen.

"For a century and a half now, America and Japan have formed one of the great and enduring alliances of modern times."
-- George W. Bush. Ignoring that little spat in the 1940s... something about Pearl Harbor, Iwo Jima, Midway, Guadalcanal, Bataan, kamikazes, a nuclear bomb or two... whatever.

"I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president. I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."
-- George W. Bush. No, that would be one of the interesting things about being king or pope. You, sir, are actually an employee of the people of the United States of America... and you do owe us explanations about everything. Anyone who would say or think such a thing really has utterly no business being president.

"I want justice. And there's an old poster out West, I recall, that says, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive'".
-- George W. Bush. The sheriff-in-chief determined to snare that Osama bin Laden, the villain of 9/11

"I don't know where he is. I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.".
-- George W. Bush. Six months later, no longer so interested in justice, the flip-flopper-in-chief has turned his attention to Iraq.

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we. "
-- George W. Bush. Definitely doing a great job there.

"I believe God wants me to be president."
-- George W. Bush. Funny, Osama bin Laden thinks God chose him, too.

"I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe—I believe what I believe is right."
-- George W. Bush. Except when it's wrong... which, unfortunately, seems to be the case most often.

"One has a stronger hand when there's more people playing your same cards."
-- George W. Bush. And your chances of winning are better. Wait a minute???

"A dictatorship would be a lot easier."
-- George W. Bush. Why not? Facism has always been popular with conservatives.

"I was proud the other day when both Republicans and Democrats stood with me in the Rose Garden to announce their support for a clear statement of purpose: you disarm, or we will."
-- George W. Bush. If only! Instead, the U.S. military budget is almost, not quite, but almost, equal to the rest of the world's combined? No wonder billions of people around the globe consider the most dangerous nation on earth to be... the United States of America.

"The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
-- George W. Bush. State of the Union speech, 2003... even though Bush was aware that the CIA considered this claim entirely bogus.

"You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror."
-- George W. Bush. It's always difficult to fit a square peg into a round hole. Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, yet the invasion of Iraq diverted precious resources away from the real "war on terror", and has alienated America from the rest of the world... making the real "war on terror" much more challenging.

"My answer is, 'bring them on.'"
-- George W. Bush. July, 2003. Goading the insurgents in Iraq, who promptly complied with fury.

"I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense."
-- George W. Bush. April, 2006. Bush, "the decider"... rather like Peter Pan, "the adult".

"Both men (Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld) are doing fantastic in their jobs. I'm pleased with the progress we're making. They'll be here until I leave office."
-- George W. Bush. November 2, 2006. Defense Secreatary Rumsfeld was fired three days later. Subsequently Bush admitted he flat-out lied to the press and American people when he uttered the statement, as he had already decided to fire Rumsfeld, and had selected a replacement.

"I would still invade Iraq even if Iraq never existed."
-- George W. Bush. Maybe that would have worked out better.

"That's George Washington, the first president, of course. The interesting thing about him is that I read three—three or four books about him last year. Isn't that interesting?"
-- George W. Bush. Thankfully, Washington didn't have to read any books about you.

"And Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
-- George W. Bush. September, 2005. To FEMA director Mike Brown who resigned 10 days later amid a firestorm of anger over his incompetence. Brown, a political crony appointed FEMA director by Bush, had no previous experience in disaster management.

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."
-- George W. Bush. Yep, that seems to be the exact blueprint.

"See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction."
-- George W. Bush. This from the world's all-time champion developer of weapons of mass destruction, which invaded another nation that was not a threat (but which did have the world's second largest pool of oil).

Dick Cheney
And now a few words from the puppet-master.

"Principle is OK up to a certain point, but principle doesn't do any good if you lose. "
-- Dick Cheney. Yes, we've noticed that conservatives happily dispense with their principles in order to win.

"I had other priorities in the '60s than military service.""
-- Dick Cheney. Five draft deferments worth of priorities. Like George W. Bush, Cheney found a way to hide out from actually going to Vietnam, but that didn't stop them from supporting others going to die in their place... then, and now.

"Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greeter access there, progress continues to be slow."
-- Dick Cheney. Of course, you could speed up the progress at getting at that "prize" by, you know, invading one of those countries.

"The question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many. So I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.... Once we had Saddam rounded him up and gotten rid of his government, then the question is what do you put in its place? How long would we have had to stay in Baghdad to keep that government in place? What would happen to the government once U.S. forces withdrew? How many casualties should the United States accept in that effort to try to create clarity and stability in a situation that is inherently unstable? I think it is vitally important for a President to know when to use military force. I think it is also very important for him to know when not to commit U.S. military force. And it's my view that the President got it right both times, that it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq."
-- Dick Cheney. In 1992, supporting the president who did not want to invade Iraq.

"We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. I think it will go relatively quickly... weeks rather than months."
-- Dick Cheney. In 2003, supporting the president who did want to invade Iraq (and go after that "prize").

"Go fuck yourself."
-- Dick Cheney. June, 2004 to Democratic Senator Pat Leahy, who had expressed dismay at the no-bid contracts Halliburton was receiving from the company's ex-CEO... Dick Cheney.

"We haven't really had the time yet to pore through all those records in Baghdad. We'll find ample evidence confirming the link, that is the connection if you will between al Qaida and the Iraqi intelligence services. They have worked together on a number of occasions."
-- Dick Cheney. There is no credible intelligence that the Saddam Hussein regime ever cooperated with al Qaeda. Indeed, they hated each other.

"We now know that Saddam Hussein had the capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction.... We know he had the necessary infrastructure because we found the labs and the dual-use facilities that could be used for these chemical and biological agents. We know that he was developing the delivery systems — ballistic missiles — that had been prohibited by the United Nations."
-- Dick Cheney. Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, no capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction have been discovered... precisely as the weapons inspectors inside Iraq prior to the invasion had suggested.

"The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."
-- Dick Cheney. June, 2005. The "insurgency" has not only continued but increased in intensity since this statement.

"The bottom line is that we've had enormous successes (in Iraq) and we will continue to have enormous successes."
-- Dick Cheney. January, 2007. Some true-believers will take you at your word, but an avalanche of facts speaks otherwise... sir puppetmaster. History is likely to record the invasion of Iraq as the biggest military blunder in American history.

"As a former secretary of defense, I think Donald Rumsfeld is the best secretary of defense the United States has ever had."
-- Dick Cheney. Most unbiased observers now believe that Rumsfeld was the worst secretary of defense the United States has ever had... underscoring once again the disconnect between conservative belief and the plain fact.

"With respect to the question of relationships, my general view is that freedom means freedom for everyone. People...ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to."
-- Dick Cheney. January, 2004. Referring to the homosexual relationship of his daughter Mary Cheney. But even a lesbian in the family of one of its highest member (and liberally sprinkled throughout the rest of the party) didn't stop the Republicans from using homophobia as a wedge issue in every political campaign.

"Everyone knows that you're not really a real man unless you own a gun."
-- Dick Cheney. April, 2002... approximately four years before he aimed a shotgun at a fellow hunter and pulled the trigger.

Ronald Reagan
The Great Communicator... uh, maybe not.

"My fellow Americans. I'm pleased to announce that I've signed legislation outlawing the Soviet Union. We begin bombing in five minutes."
-- Ronald Reagan. Good thing the Soviets really were pathetically inept... lest we lose a few cities in a mushroom cloud upon their hearing of this ill-considered quip.

"It's true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?"
-- Ronald Reagan. Admitting the conservative politician's high regard for hard work... for everyone else that is.

"Facts are stupid things."
-- Ronald Reagan. A truer conservative mantra never was uttered.

"Government isn't the solution to the problem; it is the problem."
-- Ronald Reagan. Certainly often true when conservatives are running the government -- as Iraq, Hurricane Katrina and the Walter Reed Hospital debacles have so recently affirmed. Not so much when liberals, who actually care about the common citizen and do pay attention to those pesky "facts", are doing the problem-solving. Not only is this quotation soundly untrue, it is a ridiculously irresponsible thing for a political leader to say. It is, however, a prototypical conservative thought: do anything, including inspiring distrust and disgust amongst the citizenry toward their own government, to get elected.

"Trees cause more pollution than automobiles."
-- Ronald Reagan. Classic Republican disinformation based upon a nugget of truth. Trees can release hydrocarbons that contribute to photochemical smog, however, their absorption of carbon dioxide and release of oxygen more than compensates for this. Indeed, when it comes to breathable air, trees and plants are our best friends. Meanwhile, automobiles and other human sources pump billions of pounds of additional chemicals, hydrocarbons and carbon dioxide -- over and above all natural sources of such pollutants -- into the atmosphere causing unhealthful air quality, increased smog and, most ominously, a build-up of greenhouse gases that are causing the entire planet to warm.

"We are trying to get unemployment to go up, and I think we're going to succeed."
-- Ronald Reagan. Thankfully, he didn't.

"The state of California has no business subsidizing intellectual curiosity."
-- Ronald Reagan. Yeah, schools and colleges are a real bad investment for a nation... and, of course, the intellectually curious rarely remain conservative. Besides, Reagan and Bush Jr. prove how far you can get in life without possessing any intellectually curiosity.

"What we have found in this country, and maybe we're more aware of it now, is one problem that we've had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless who are homeless, you might say, by choice."
-- Ronald Reagan. Another of Reagan's utterly false statements. Reagan's domestic policies exponentially increased homelessness in America.

"She has 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards and is collecting veteran's benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she is collecting Social Security on her cards. She's got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names."
-- Ronald Reagan. Campaigning against so-called "welfare queens". Turns out, no such person ever existed, and the conservative implication that such welfare fraud was ever common, much less rampant, was absolutely false. Rather this was yet another conservative ploy to stir up class and racial biases to bring out their voters.

"What does an actor know about politics?"
-- Ronald Reagan. Criticizing Ed Asner for opposing American foreign policy.

"Please tell me you're all Republicans."
-- Ronald Reagan. On admittance to the surgical theater after the assassination attempt that left him with bullet hole in his side. Ha-ha. But wouldn't you know, the lead surgeon, Joseph Giordano, was a liberal Democrat, who graciously replied, "We're all Republicans today." Reagan fully recovered, and the brilliant surgeon who saved the conservative president resumed being a liberal.

"In the 38th chapter of Ezekiel, it says that the land of Israel will come under attack by the armies of the ungodly nations, and it says that Libya will be among them. Do you understand the significance of that? Libya has now gone Communist, and that's a sign that the day of Armageddon isn't far off."
-- Ronald Reagan. And now that Libya is no longer communist, does that mean that Amageddon has been called off?

George H. W. Bush
Far more experienced, and far wiser than his son, yes, but not quite as quotable.

"I'm the one who will not raise taxes. My opponent now says he'll raise them as a last resort, or a third resort. But when a politician talks like that, you know that's one resort he'll be checking into. My opponent won't rule out raising taxes. But I will. And The Congress will push me to raise taxes and I'll say no. And they'll push, and I'll say no, and they'll push again, and I'll say, to them, ‘Read my lips: no new taxes.’"
-- George H.W. Bush. During the 1988 presidential campaign. As president Bush Sr. would sign the largest tax increase in American history at the time.

"It's voodoo economics."
-- George H.W. Bush. During the 1980 presidential primaries, referring to Ronald Reagan's "supply-side" economic plan. He was correct. Reagan's tax cuts for the wealthy and out-of-control military spending ran up a record deficit.

"I will never apologize for the United States, ever. I don't care what the facts are."
-- George H.W. Bush. After a U.S. warship shot down an Iranian commercial airliner, kiling 290 civilians. There you have it. True stubborn conservative resolve to put misguided, jingoistic patriotism over and above truth, honor and the ability to learn and grow from our mistakes. Is it any wonder that Bush Jr. and his compadres cannot ever admit mistakes, and that we are now sunk in the morass of Iraq when the conservatives learned absolutely nothing from Vietnam?

"Extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different — and perhaps barren — outcome."
-- George H.W. Bush. Explaining why his administration refused to go after Saddam Hussein following the Gulf War, and displaying rare clarity of thought, and even clairvoyance.

"We have before us the opportunity to forge for ourselves and for future generations a 'new world order'. A world where the rule of law, not the law of the jungle, governs the conduct of nations. When we are successful, and we will be, we have a real chance at this 'new world order', an order in which a credible United Nations can use it's peacekeeping role to fulfill the promise and vision of the U.N.s' founders."
-- George H.W. Bush. Nice try. These sweet-sounding words camouflage conservative hatred of the United Nations (because it insists on the United States actually becoming just one of the "united" nations, not the bully-boy on the world block that conservatives want it to forever be), and ring completely hollow since Georgie Junior's utter disdain and disregard of international law, systematic attempt to marginalize the U.N., and implementation of the "Bush Doctrine" (might-makes-right, pre-emptive strike) which was derived direct from the jungle.

"I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the identity of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors."
-- George H.W. Bush. Ooops... spoken four years before his son, Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby and Karl Rove intentionally betrayed the trust and exposed the identity of CIA covert agent Valerie Plame.

"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them."
-- George H.W. Bush. On that we can agree.

"I'm conservative, but I'm not a nut about it."
-- George H.W. Bush. That's probably why you were not re-elected. It's the conservative nut-jobs that have the staying power.

"I put confidence in the American people, in their ability to sort through what is fair and what is unfair, what is ugly and what is unugly."
-- George H.W. Bush. Guess making up words runs in the family.

"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."
-- George H.W. Bush. Conservatives just really don't believe in freedom of religion, or freedom from religion, as explicitly proscribed by the Founding Fathers. Of course, they were liberals.

Richard Nixon
Just a lovely, lovely man... and delightful president.

"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal."
-- Richard Nixon. Making up the rules as he went along. Like the truth, the law has always bugged conservatives. Reagan and George W. Bush picked up where Nixon left off.

"When I grow up, I want to be an honest lawyer so things like that can't happen."
-- Richard Nixon. As a boy, explaining his dismay regarding the infamous Teapot Dome scandal of conservative president Warren G. Harding's administration. Yep, conservatives have always been the progenitors of the most harmful scandals, and Nixon, himself would concoct one of the biggest of all.

"This administration has proved that it is utterly incapable of cleaning out the corruption which has completely eroded it and reestablishing the confidence and faith of the American people in the morality and honesty of their government employees."
-- Richard Nixon. As a senator, attacking the Truman administration. Though the words "morality" and "honesty" are regularly wielded by conservatives, and rarely apply to any politician, they apply least of all to conservatives ... as Nixon, Reagan and Bush would decisively prove.

"I would have made a good pope."
-- Richard Nixon. Well, maybe. But it's a good thing to be Catholic first.

"This [politics] would be a helluva good business if it wasn't for the goddamned people."
-- Richard Nixon. Far better to be pope or king or dictator (as in George W. Bush's dream). Notice how conservative minds think alike... in their disdain for that little thing in America we call "democracy".

"Publicly, we say one thing....Actually, we do another."
-- Richard Nixon. Thank you for admitting it so clearly.

"The Pakistanis are straightforward and sometimes extremely stupid. The Indians are more devious, sometimes so smart that we fall for their line."
-- Richard Nixon. The conservatives have such a gift for painting entire races, entire countries, entire religions with their black-and-white brush.

"You know, it's a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana are Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the Jews? What is the matter with them? I suppose it is because most of them are psychiatrists."
-- Richard Nixon. Our president, clearly channeling some sort of alternate conservative reality.

"The Jews are irreligious, atheistic, immoral bunch of bastards."
-- Richard Nixon. Certainly unlike you, sir, a pillar of moral behavior... or not.

"Now here's the point, Bob. Please get the names of the Jews. You know, the big Jewish contributors to the Democrats. Could you please investigate some of the cocksuckers? That's all."
-- Richard Nixon. Oy!

"I have the greatest affection for African-Americans, but I know they're not going to make it for 500 years. They aren't. You know it, too. The Mexicans are a different cup of tea. They have a heritage. At the present time they steal, they're dishonest, but they do have some concept of family life. They don't live like a bunch of dogs, which the Negroes do live like."
-- Richard Nixon. Pithy but accurate insight into what conservatives think about, oh, approximately half of the American population.

"I'm not for women, frankly, in any job. I don't want any of them around. Thank God we don't have any in the Cabinet."
-- Richard Nixon. American females... if you vote conservative, you just really don't have a clue, do you?

"Look, people get drunk ... People chase girls. And the point is, it's a hell of a lot better for them to get drunk than to take drugs. It's better to chase girls than boys. "
-- Richard Nixon. Defending an American ambassador's groping of a female flight attendant.

"I don't mind the homosexuality. I understand it. Nevertheless, goddamn, I don't think you glorify it on public television, homosexuality, even more than you glorify whores. We all know we have weaknesses. But, goddammit, what do you think that does to kids? You know what happened to the Greeks! Homosexuality destroyed them. Sure, Aristotle was a homo. We all know that. So was Socrates."
-- Richard Nixon. So let's get this straight, sir, we should glorify whores more than homosexuals?

"That asshole."
-- Richard Nixon. His term for Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau. To which Trudeau replied, "I've been called worse things by better people."

"I want to make sure he's a ruthless son of a bitch, that he will do as he is told, that every income tax return I want to see, I see. That he will go after our enemies and not go after our friends."
-- Richard Nixon. Considering who he would appoint to head the Internal Revenue Service. And you thought George W. Bush trying to manipulate U.S. attorneys into prosecuting Democrats while stonewalling Republican crimes was original?

"I'd rather use the nuclear bomb. Have you got that, Henry? The nuclear bomb, does that bother you?...I just want you to think big, Henry, for Christsakes... You're so goddamned concerned about civilians and I don't give a damn. I don't care."
-- Richard Nixon. Debating with Henry Kissinger about using a nuclear bomb on North Vietnam.

"I don't give a shit what happens. I want you all to stonewall it, let them plead the Fifth Amendment, cover up or anything else, if it'll save it, save this plan. That's the whole point. We're going to protect our people if we can."
-- Richard Nixon. As the Watergate investigations began heating up.

"And I want you to know that I have no intention whatever of ever walking away from the job that the people elected me to do for the people of the United States."
-- Richard Nixon. He walked away from the job seven months later.

"Maybe New York shouldn't survive. Maybe it should go through a cycle of destruction."
-- Richard Nixon. An early thought by the conservatives, later picked up by the neocons, on how nicely a "Pearl Harbor style" attack would serve their amibitions to rule America.

Hunter S. Thompson eulogizes Richard M. Nixon

Barry Goldwater
A staunch believer in small government, a doctrine most liberals firmly reject... but also a pure-hearted defender of democracy and liberty. One of the last conservatives who often made perfect sense.

"Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. Their mistaken course stems from false notions of equality, ladies and gentlemen. Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism."
-- Barry Goldwater. A beautiful repudiation of the practices and policies of Nixon, Reagan and Bush.

"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! Tolerance in the face of tyranny is no virtue."
-- Barry Goldwater. Take that, those that would shut off dissent over George W. Bush's disastrous regime.

"To disagree, one doesn't have to be disagreeable."
-- Barry Goldwater. Tell that to Lee Atwater and Karl Rove, Republican grand wizards of the politics of personal destruction.

"I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C" and "D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.'"
-- Barry Goldwater. Ever wonder why you rarely hear Barry Goldwater quoted by conservatives?

"Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."
-- Barry Goldwater.

"Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy."
-- Barry Goldwater

"A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel."
-- Barry Goldwater. OK. And the corollary would have to be, 'a conservative is someone too narrowminded to see any other side'.

"If everybody in this town connected with politics had to leave town because of chasing women and drinking, you would have no government."
-- Barry Goldwater. But that doesn't stop hypocritical conservatives from trying, eh Newt?

"The big thing is to make this country, along with every other country in the world with a few exceptions, quit discriminating against people just because they're gay. You don't have to agree with it, but they have a constitutional right to be gay."
-- Barry Goldwater. Ever wonder why you rarely hear Barry Goldwater quoted by conservatives?

"You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight."
-- Barry Goldwater. A one-of-a-kind conservative, for sure.

More Choice Quips From Great Conservative Thinkers Past & Present

Lee Atwater
"I acquired more wealth, power, and prestige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. I don't know who will lead us through the '90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul."
-- Lee Atwater. Republican political operative and campaign director for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, who pioneered excessively dirty campaign tricks. He expressed regret about many of those tactics shortly before he died of a brain tumor. Karl Rove is considered Atwater's "hatchet-man" successor and continuing dirty tricks innovator.

William F. Buckley Jr.
"The Beatles are not merely awful. They are so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art, that they qualify as crowned heads of antimusic."
-- William F. Buckley Jr., one of the crown princes of modern American conservatism, in absolutely priceless conservative form: pontificating obtusely, arrogantly presuming to thoroughly understand a subject that in actuality he had not the thinnest sliver of a clue about. In this matter, as in so many others, he was as wrong as wrong can possibly be. But as a conservative Buckley was genetically programmed to despise the Beatles. They were new, they were fresh, they were different, they defied convention, they flaunted the establishment and threatened the status-quo, they were working class lads, they were cheeky, they were revolutionary, they were exceedingly talented, indeed, brilliant. And they appealed to the young. Conservatives, throughout history, have been petrified of such phenomena... yet, as in the case of the Beatles, are generally helpless to stop it despite their control of wealth and power. Buckley, the harpsichord (an anachronistic instrument, ironically brought back, briefly, into popular music by none other than the Beatles) player and staunch classical music afficianado, was, like most conservatives, stunningly ignorant regarding the elements of real art... not to mention the concept of fun, except as narrowly defined by conservatives like himself.

"Scientists are people who build the Brooklyn Bridge and then buy it."
-- William F. Buckley Jr. admitting the age-old and never-dying conservative antagonism toward science, truth and those who would deliver it. Not much has changed since the days of Galileo and Copernicus.

"Conservatives should be adamant about the need for the reappearance of Judeo-Christianity in the public square."
-- William F. Buckley Jr., faithful Catholic, acknowledging the general conservative disbelief in true religious freedom in America.

"The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry."
-- William F. Buckley Jr. (except when it's a conservative usurpatory government such as that of George W. Bush... then an "assertive citizenry" is just a rabble of terrorist sympathizers).

"Everyone detected with AIDS should be tatooed in the upper forearm, to protect common-needle users, and on the buttocks, to prevent the victimization of other homosexuals."
-- William F. Buckley Jr., displaying real conservative understanding and compassion... kind of like the way the Nazis handled the Jews.

“Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich.”
-- William F. Buckley Jr. Actually, no. Insisting on using a word like "collectivize" suggests some sinister Communist plot, rather it might be explained that the liberal perspective is to always do right for the "collective good", in rich times as in poor, whereas conservative leaders philsophically and methodically disdain the collective good at all times in favoring the good of the individual rich, white male.

“A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling "Stop!"”
-- William F. Buckley Jr. Precisely! Stop the progress! Stop the progress! Fortunately, after a while, history casts aside the conservative point-of-view, and moves ahead. They come along, kicking and screaming.

“Some of my instincts are reprehensible.”
-- William F. Buckley Jr. (And most of his ideas).

"Stick me in a confessional and ask the question: Sir, if you had the authority, would you forbid smoking in America? You'd get a solemn and contrite, Yes."
-- William F. Buckley Jr., late in life, following the death of his wife from smoking-related illness (and mindful, as well, of his own emphysema), repudiating the conservative "free market" mantra in favor of that liberal concept of "collective good."

“Marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.”
William F. Buckley Jr. Well, even a broken clock is correct twice every 24 hours.

Barbara Bush
"One thing I can say about George... he may not be able to keep a job, but he's not boring."
-- Barbara Bush. Speaking of her son, George W. Bush, prior to his political campaigns.

"So many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle) - this is working very well for them."
-- Barbara Bush. Speaking about Hurricane Katrina refugees being given temporary shelter in the Houston Astrodome.

"Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"
-- Barbara Bush. Speaking about the prospect of American dead in the Iraq War.

Calvin Coolidge
One smart cookie and basically a good man, Coolidge was a study in seeming contraditions. Veering at times toward outright Marxism, Coolidge nevertheless was a died-in-the-wool tax-cutter and let-business-have-its-way kind of guy. As America had never before experienced such rapid industrialization, he can be somewhat excused for not completely understanding how his economic policies would eventually harm the middle class he wanted to protect. The "trickle-down" theory of Calvin Coolidge did not work. It never does.

"I feel I no longer fit in these times."
-- Calvin Coolidge. The conservative's lament... forever getting left behind by progress.

"There are racial considerations too grave to be brushed aside for any sentimental reasons. Biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend. The Nordics propagate themselves successfully. With other races, the outcome shows deterioration on both sides. Quality of mind and body suggests that observance of ethnic law is as great a necessity to a nation as immigration law."
-- Calvin Coolidge. This kind of garbage passed as conservative gospel for hundreds of years.

"History reveals no civilized people among whom there was not a highly educated class and large aggregations of wealth. Large profits mean large payrolls."
-- Calvin Coolidge. It's the same old conservative argument. Let's continue to help the rich get richer! What they fail to note is that large aggregations of wealth and large profits do not necessarily equate to decent wages or the flimsiest financial security for the average family. Coolidge's version of "trickle-down" (just like Reagan's and Bush's) was no boon to the working class.

"The man who builds a factory builds a temple, that the man who works there worships there, and to each is due, not scorn and blame, but reverence and praise."
-- Calvin Coolidge. And the CEO's should be regarded as Gods... or at least high priests.

"Four-fifths of our problems would disappear if we would only sit down and keep still."
-- Calvin Coolidge. Hmmm... a Republican Buddhist? No, a conservative who did not want to encourage progress, or Heavens to Betsy interfere in any way with Big Business. Shortly after he left office the stock market crashed.

"The business of America is business."
-- Calvin Coolidge. So Big Business would have us believe. The Founding Fathers, on the other hand, and most Liberals would suggest that the business of America is "the pursuit of happiness" (OK, which for the ultra rich is business).

“Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong”
-- Calvin Coolidge. And so... under this guise, conservatives shrink from ever restraining the strong in the slightest, and have generally never cared much about helping the weak at all. Liberals are far more "Christian" in their approach, caring for the weak (meaning poor, infirm, old... a condition in which many of us will eventually find ourselves), while supporting the strong insofar as is reasonable for the common good.

"The government of the United States is a device for maintaining in perpetuity the rights of the people, with the ultimate extinction of all privileged classes."
-- Calvin Coolidge. Holy Toledo! No wonder the Republicans hardly ever quote Coolidge (even though he was actually a font of homespun wisdom). Here he sounds like like Karl Marx's brother. But hey, it's not a bad idea.

Ann Coulter
"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity."
-- Ann Coulter. Referring to unnamed Islamic countries following the 9/11 attacks, and urging the same nuanced "Christian" strategy which worked ever so well during the Crusades.

"These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by griefparrazies. I have never seen people enjoying their husband's deaths so much."
-- Ann Coulter. Describing 9/11 widows critical of the Bush administration.

"God says, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours.'"
-- Ann Coulter. It's in the Bible, look it up. No, not that Bible, silly... the Industrial Polluters Bible.

Tom Delay
"I am the Federal Government."
-- Tom Delay. Reprimanding a waitress who informed him the federal government prohibited smoking in a Washington D.C. restaurant.

"So many minority youths had volunteered...that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like myself."
-- Tom Delay. Explaining his successful avoidance of serving in the military during the Vietnam War. In truth, he had student deferments, and there is no evidence he ever attempted to volunteer.

"Our school systems teach our children that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized out of some primordial soup of mud, by teaching evolution as fact."
-- Tom Delay. Blaming the teaching of evolution as the underlying cause of the Columbine high school shootings.

"It's never been proven that air toxics are hazardous to people."
-- Tom Delay. A flat-out lie by the former pest-exterminator who wanted to bring back DDT to the American landscape.

"The causes of youth violence are working parents who put their kids into daycare, the teaching of evolution in the schools, and working mothers who take birth control pills."
-- Tom Delay. And this wack job was once the top dog of the Republican congressional delegation!

"Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes."
-- Tom Delay. Another outrageous outright conservative fabrication. When the facts don't match their ideology, they simply make up their own facts. Taxes were raised in virtually all other American wars. Traditionally, sacrifices are required of all the American people. Not the Iraq war, which makes one wonder just how serious are the men behind this "war on terror" that they have pursued so incoherently, all the while continuously pushing through more tax cuts that are primarily designed to make the rich richer.

"Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?"
-- Tom Delay. To Hurricane Katrina refugees huddled in the Houston Astrodome.

Gerald Ford
"I hope never to see the day that I cannot admit having made a mistake."
-- Gerald Ford. Expressing a humbleness that George W. Bush alluded to in the 2000 presidential campaign, but has never come close to delivering.

"America now is stumbling through the darkness of hatred and divisiveness. Our values, our principles, and our determination to succeed as a free and democratic people will give us a torch to light the way. And we will survive and become the stronger — not only because of a patriotism that stands for love of country, but a patriotism that stands for love of people."
-- Gerald Ford. Yet it is conservatives who fuel and exploit hatred and divisiveness... and who most practice blind patriotism to their ideology, not to their country and its declared principles, and not to any people who do not look and think like them.

John Hagee (Noted Evangelical Christian Pastor)
"All hurricanes are acts of God because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that."
-- John Hagee. On Hurricane Katrina.

"Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick. Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist."
-- John Hagee. On women, in general.

"It was the disobedience and rebellion of the Jews, God's chosen people, to their covenantal responsibility to serve only the one true God, Jehovah, that gave rise to the opposition and persecution that they experienced beginning in Canaan and continuing to this very day."
-- John Hagee. On Jews, in general.

"Those who live by the Qur'an have a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews... it teaches that very clearly." -- John Hagee. On Muslims, in general, not having a clue what he is talking about (standard conservative operating procedure).

Herbert Hoover
"I’m the only person of distinction who’s ever had a depression named for him. "
-- Herbert Hoover. And the blame usually doesn't fall far from where it belongs.

William Kristol (Noted NeoConservative)
"Among conservatives there's been too much pseudo-populism, almost too much concern and attention for, quote, 'the people'... After all, we conservatives are on the side of the lords and barons... We...are pulling up the drawbridge against the peasants."
-- William Kristol

"Whenever I hear anything described as a heartless assault on our children I tend to think it's a good idea."
-- William Kristol

Rush Limbaugh
"Too many whites are getting away with drug use. The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them, and send them up the river."
-- Rush Limbaugh. Except, of course, himself. Like all conservative honchos, Limbaugh, a confessed drug-abuser, sets a completely different standard for himself.

"I mean, why didn't these morons leave New Orleans before the hurricane? I'll tell you why: because they wanted to rape and loot! That's just the way some people are! And if they're black--if the rapists and looters are black--it's not George Bush's fault! We've had these problems ever since the Emancipation Proclamation."
-- Rush Limbaugh. Damn Lincoln... that Republican traitor.

"I'm going to tell you, what's good for al Qaeda is good for the Democratic Party in this country today."
-- Rush Limbaugh. He's got it exactly backwards, as usual. Let's see: Republican leaders squandered the worldwide support and empathy for the U.S. after 9/11, bungled the possible capture of bin Laden at Tora Bora, took the pressure off al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan by diverting the "war on terror" to Iraq where there were no terrorists, caved to al Qaeda demands to remove U.S. military bases from Saudi Arabia, alienated the world with their unparalleled arrogance, enflamed and energized radical Islam worldwide, flushed billions of dollars of American taxpayers' money down the Iraq rathole, have worn out our military and sent over 3,000 American soldiers to be picked off by insurgents... Holy Jihad, George W. Bush and the Republicans have been al Qaeda's wet dream!

"We're not sexists, we're chauvinists -- we're male chauvinist pigs, and we're happy to be because we think that's what men were destined to be. We think that's what women want."
-- Rush Limbaugh. That Limbaugh... a conservative man's man.

"I don't care if they're Republican liberals or Democrat liberals, they're still liberals. They're not 'moderates.' Don't hit me with that. There's no such thing as a moderate. A moderate is just a liberal disguise."
-- Rush Limbaugh. Modern Conservatism: no moderates need apply.

Gary North
"The long-term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive control over the franchise (government). Those who refuse to submit publicly to the eternal sanctions of God by submitting to His Church's public marks of the covenant -- baptism and holy communion -- must be denied citizenship, just as they were in ancient Israel."
-- Gary North, Christian-Right leader. Yeah, that worked out well for ancient Israel.

Bill O'Reilly
"I'm telling you that President Bush is doing just what Jesus would have done."
-- Bill O'Reilly. Especially with regard to the lying, torturing and pre-emptive war.

"This is the No Spin Zone."
-- Bill O'Reilly. Referring to his television show, which spins like a top.

Fox News Channel
"Fair and balanced."
-- Fox News Channel. The conservative political and philosophical tactic in a nutshell: The Big Lie. Actually, Fox News is the least fair and balanced television news network in American history. See how this works, folks? In conservative-speak, down is up, wrong is right.

Colin Powell
"There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more."
-- Colin Powell - Address to the United Nations Security Council, February 5, 2003. It was later documented that the "evidence" Powell presented before the United Nations was completely erroneous, and concocted by those in the administration who wanted to go to war.

"That (the statement above) is a blot on my record. It will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It's painful now."
-- Colin Powell.

"I'm sleeping like a baby, too. Every two hours, I wake up, screaming."
-- Colin Powell. Commenting on President Bush's claim that he was "sleeping like a baby" prior to war with Iraq.

Dan Quayle
"What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is."
-- Dan Quayle. Long before our present mangler-in-chief, we had the Quaylester, here trying to refer to the United Negro College Fund slogan: A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste.

Pat Robertson
"There is no such thing as separation of church and state in the Constitution. It is a lie of the left and we are not going to take it any more."
-- Pat Robertson, televangelist and one-time Republican presidential candidate. Right... leftist liars like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, et al.

"The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians."
-- Pat Robertson.

"I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war, and I don’t think any oil shipments will stop."
-- Pat Robertson, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Anyone who truly believes this vile human being is actually a follower of Jesus Christ is about as lost as one can get.

"There are thirty to forty thousand left-wing professors in the United States who are "racists, murderers, sexual deviants and supporters of Al-Qaeda."
-- Pat Robertson, on liberal college professors. Isn't it strange how those most educated most annoy those who would impose their own values on the rest of us?

Karl Rove
"The labor movement must be destroyed."
-- Karl Rove, primary political and campaign strategist for George W. Bush. Yes, things were so much better for conservative corporatists and industrialists before the labor movement solidified and brought American culture such things as a decent working wage, health care, retirement, workplace safety regulations, child labor laws, the 40 hour work week... and, of course, the weekend off. Of course, it also mobilized a huge block of liberal voters... so despite the fact that the labor movement has benefitted all Americans, conservative powers-that-be are determined to turn the clock back to the 1920s... and they are making signifant progress. Rove's anti-worker proclamation is in the process of being actualized.

"As people do better, they start voting like Republicans - unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing."
-- Karl Rove. Oh, so that's why you never got a college degree. Don't want to ever risk having too much education... might learn too many inconvenient truths.

"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."
-- Karl Rove. An over-the-top mangling of the truth, and textbook example of conservatives dispicable politicalization of the tragedy of 9/11. In reality, conservatives were plotting for war against Iraq long before 9/11. Liberals (and, indeed, the majority of the world) were in accord and supportive with American strikes against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, the people who actually planned the 9/11 attacks. Number of liberals in Congress or otherwise prominent calling for "therapy and understanding for our attackers": zero.

"We will fuck him. Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever fucked him."
-- Karl Rove. Regarding a political operative who had displeased him. If you in the "morals" crowd out there actually believe that these are nice people, moral people, Christian people, you are in la-la land.

"Our party will win (in November) because we have an agenda to run on and that Americans agree on."
-- Karl Rove. Prior to the 2006 mid-term elections in which Republicans were swept out of power in the U.S. House of Representatives, Senate and several governerships. Wrong again, boy genius.

Donald Rumsfeld
"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq."
-- Donald Rumsfeld. Knowingly exaggerating --- really, really exaggerating -- the threat that Iraq posed to American security and to the world. The truth was that Iraq was a broken-down, tottering shell of its former militaristic self, and that several other nations, including North Korea, Iran, as well as potent factions in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia represented a far greater threat to American security.

"Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war."
-- Donald Rumsfeld. And we certainly want to keep all of our wars as cheery as possible... especially those that might easily be perceived by the public as a big, fat mistake.

"I can't tell you if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days, or five weeks, or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that."
-- Donald Rumsfeld. Wrong as wrong can be.

"We know where they [Iraq's WMD] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat."
-- Donald Rumsfeld. Lying through his teeth.

"Stuff happens."
-- Donald Rumsfeld. Dismissing the rampant looting and lawlessness that occurred following the American invasion of Iraq, and which clearly evidenced the Bush administration's lack of a post-invasion plan for securing the peace.

Leo Strauss

Randall Terry
"I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good. Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty, we are called on by God to conquer this country."
-- Randall Terry. Onetime Republican political candidate and leader of Operation Rescue explaining his conservative flavor of Christianity.

Strom Thurmond
"I wanna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there's not enough troops in the army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigra race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches."
-- Strom Thurmond. Arch-conservative senator and unapologetic segregationist, though this did not stop him from having an affair (and a child) with an African-American woman.

"An American should be able choose to work in a place where he is with his kind of people and not find that at the counters, desk or benches they will be forced to work, side by side, with all types of people of all races; that in the lunchrooms, rest rooms, recreation rooms, they will be compelled by law to mingle with persons and races which all their lives they have by free choice, avoided in social and business intercourse."
-- Strom Thurmond.

"(Martin Luther) King demeans his race and retards the advancement of his people."
-- Strom Thurmond.

George Wallace
"Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."
-- George Wallace, governor of Alabama, 1963.

James Watt
"We don't have to protect the environment. The Second Coming is at hand."
-- James Watt. Interior secretary appointed by Ronald Reagan, whose public duties included, uh, protecting the environment.

Paul Wolfowitz
"I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq."
-- Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy secretary of defense. All foreigners... except us, of course. Wolfowitz was one of the architects of the Iraq invasion, arguing for it since the mid-1990s.

"There's a lot of money to pay for this. It doesn't have to be U.S. taxpayer money. We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon."
-- Paul Wolfowitz. Testimony before Congress, March 2003. The total eventual bill to U.S. taxpayers for the entire Iraq war, reconstruction, military equipment re-purchase and health care for wounded soldiers is now estimated at over two trillion dollars.

-- Rusticus