Political Quotes

“I think this best can be answered in my not responding directly but quoting. This is from an op-ed that appeared around the country by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein. ``Let's just say it,'' is the headline, ``The Republicans are the problem.'' I am quoting: Rep. Allen West, a Florida Republican, was recently captured on video asserting that there are ``78 to 81'' Democrats in Congress who are members of the Communist Party. Of course, it's not unusual for some renegade lawmaker from either side of the aisle to say something outrageous. What made West's comment--right out of the McCarthyite playbook of the 1950s--so striking was the almost complete lack of condemnation from Republican congressional leaders or other major party figures, including the remaining presidential candidates. It's not that the GOP leadership agrees with West; it is that such extreme remarks and views are now taken for granted. Understand, Ornstein works for the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. They go on to say: The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition. I am a legislator. I have been doing it for 30 years here and for quite a few years in Nevada prior to getting here. I have enjoyed being a legislator.…”