Hello True-Believers! It's time again for "Did You Hear What They Said?", the regular series where we quote people in the public eye IN CONTEXT.

Remember, it's not hate-speech, THEY ACTUALLY SAID IT!!

And now, on with the show:

THE AMERICAN SPIRIT

"We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromisingand has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. Ifnew difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions andproportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times."
-- George Washington (letter to Philip Schuyler, 7/15/1777)

"The politics of lamentation is not likely to appeal to Americans with a taste for the sunny side of the street." —Wesley Pruden

"Work as if you were to live 100 Years, Pray as if you were to die To-morrow."
-- Benjamin Franklin

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility againstevery form of tyranny over the mind of man."
-- Thomas Jefferson (letter to Benjamin Rush, 23 September 1800)

WAR

" it took from 1776 until 1790 for the United States to go from declaring its independence from England to final adoption of the document under which it would operate for the next 215 years. Based upon that, the Iraqis could take until 2016 to get this all done and still beat the U.S. timetable by a full year." --Rich Galen

"By all rights, Iraq should be in civil war, with the majority Kurds and Shiites slaughtering the Sunnis—which is exactly what the Jihadis are trying to instigate. Instead, the three groups continue talking, squabbling and trying to reach political compromise. It's nothing short of miraculous."--Mark Alexander

"They're not children in Iraq; they're grown-ups who made their own decision to join the military. That seems to be difficult for the left to grasp. Ever since America's all-adult, all-volunteer army went into Iraq, the anti-war crowd have made a sustained effort to characterize them as 'children'." —Mark Steyn

"Unless Democrats demonstrate the political courage and resolution to win a war, rather than just criticize it, they will remain a minority party no matter what the polls show."--Peter Charles Choharis, executive director of the 2004 Democratic Platform Committee

"Even if you could prove that the war was a mistake in every way, to say that it never should have happened is not a good argument for abandoning the project. If a man is stabbed in the chest, you don't cure him by simply yanking the knife out."--Jonah Goldberg

(The following is from a caller to the Rush Limbaugh Show)
RUSH: Paul in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, welcome, nice to have you on the program.

CALLER: Thank you, sir, I appreciate it. Yeah, I just wanted to say, especially after that one caller, I mean I didn't volunteer because the president's daughters were doing something or some senator's son was joining or anything like that, and I didn't join because I was coming from the ghetto and I wanted to get out.

You know, I joined because it was a career choice, and I wanted to do it, and I really feel that if her son was here today -- and I understand her grief. I mean, I'm a father as well, but I served in Iraq. I've served in Afghanistan.

I've been over there many times, and, you know, I've had friends lost right next to me in battle, and I can understand the grief, but, you know what? At the same time they're doing what they wanted to do.

So many of these people are stuck back in the Vietnam days, and the days of the draft, that I used to get e-mail saying, "Boy, I'm sorry that you're over there." I would e-mail back and say, "What do you mean, you're sorry? I put myself here on purpose. This is what I want to do." August 15, 2005

DEMOCRAT HYPOCRISY

"War against Serbia is unwarranted on strategic, legal and moral grounds. If air strikes take place, Serbia will be the fourth country Bill Clinton has bombed in the past seven months. That record is one of a trigger-happy administration that is creating an image of America as the planetary bully. Decent Americans need to make a stand when it has reached the point of a full-scale war of aggression against a country that has done us no harm."--Ted Galen Carpenter, March 23, 1999 (http://www.cato.org/dailys/03-23-99.html)

In 1996, former Sierra Club President David Brower wrote, "President Clinton has done more to harm the environment and to weaken environmental regulations in three years than presidents Bush and Reagan did in 12 years."--(http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/new_articles.cfm?articleID=555&journalID=57)


CINDY SHEEHAN (or "Michael Moore told me this would work!")

"We do not agree with the political motivations and publicity tactics of Cindy Sheehan. She now appears to be promoting her own personal agenda and notoriety at the expense of her son's good name and reputation. The rest of the Sheehan Family supports the troops, our country and our President, silently, with prayer and respect."--Casey Sheehan's relatives

CINDY SHEEHAN, RIGHT AFTER MEETING WITH PRESIDENT BUSH
"I have a new respect for him because he was sincere and he didn't have to take the time to meet with us. I now know he's sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis. I know he's sorry and feels some pain for our loss, and I know he's a man of faith."

CINDY SHEEHAN, RIGHT AFTER GETTING IN FRONT OF A CAMERA
"We are not waging a war on terror in this country, we're waging a war of terror. The biggest terrorist in the world is George W. Bush!"

"I've been with the President of the United States when he has met with the families of those brave young men and women who have sacrificed all. I have seen his compassion, I have seen his love, I have seen his concern. So any charge of insensitivity or uncaring on the part of this president is absolutely false... I'm sure he wouldn't like to hear me say this, but I saw him afterwards. He was very, very grieved."--Senator John McCain

Army Cpl. Forest Jostes, 22, who served with Casey Sheehan in the 1st Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Cavalry. On 4 April 2004, Forest died beside Casey in the same battle with Jihadis.

Last week, Forest's parents, Von and Diane Ibbotson, had this to say about his death: "We were at a crossroads, but we decided from the day he died that we were going to honor him, his sacrifice. We support the President, and we have made a conscious effort to not make this political."

Of Ms. Sheehan's behavior, Forest's parents said, "We both lost sons in the same battle, but the similarities pretty much end there. Cindy Sheehan has a right to protest, wave signs, march or whatever, a right she wouldn't have had it not been for men like our sons.

"My son gave his life for the freedom we enjoy in this country; I hope that the Iraqi people have that someday. We feel sympathy for Mrs. Sheehan, but we're angry because she presumes to speak for so many. I resent the fact that she says she 'speaks for the millions' and is the face of the Gold Star families. That is not so."

Sheehan spoke at an April San Francisco State University rally in support of Lynne Stewart, who was convicted in February of providing material aid to terrorists. Here's an excerpt:

"I was raised in a country by a public school system that taught us that America was good, that America was just. America has been killing people . . . since we first stepped on this continent, we have been responsible for death and destruction.

I passed on that bull***t to my son and my son enlisted. I'm going all over the country telling moms: "This country is not worth dying for."

"If we're attacked, we would all go out. We'd all take whatever we had. I'd take my rolling pin and I'd beat the attackers over the head with it. But we were not attacked by Iraq. We might not even have been attacked by Osama bin Laden if 9/11 was their Pearl Harbor to get their neo-con agenda through and, if I would have known that before my son was killed, I would have taken him to Canada. I would never have let him go and try and defend this morally repugnant system we have."

(Note to Ms. Sheehan: If America is so "repugnant" to you, you are welcome TO LEAVE.)

MEDIA

"That's my job. I'm a newsman. That's what I try to do, is make news." —CNN's Wolf Blitzer

HILLARY

“She is perceived to be too far to the left.”--Larry Gates, chairman of the Kansas Democratic Party

“I think she’s potentially toxic for the Democrats every place except for the Democratic stronghold states,”--Bruce Buchanan, a University of Texas political scholar

AND FINALLY

"The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among oldparchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam,in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinityitself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power."
-- Alexander Hamilton (The Farmer Refuted, 23 February 1775)

Take care and have a great day!