HST Bons Mots

Harry S Truman (1884-1972) was the first president I remember. I remember hearing my grandparents talk about the results of the 1948 presidential election. Compare HST's command of the language with the current occupant of the White House. Even the Dickster—he of the F-bomb—can't hold a candle to HST's epithets. If this is (fair & balanced) pithiness, so be it.

Life is good. 
Harry S Truman Quotes

A bureaucrat is a Democrat who holds some office that a Republican wants.
Harry S Truman

A leader in the Democratic Party is a boss, in the Republican Party he is a leader.
Harry S Truman

A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.
Harry S Truman

A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead for 15 years.
Harry S Truman

A President cannot always be popular.
Harry S Truman

A president either is constantly on top of events or, if he hesitates, events will soon be on top of him. I never felt that I could let up for a moment.
Harry S Truman

A President needs political understanding to run the government, but he may be elected without it.
Harry S Truman

Actions are the seed of fate deeds grow into destiny.
Harry S Truman

All my life, whenever it comes time to make a decision, I make it and forget about it.
Harry S Truman

All the president is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.
Harry S Truman

Always be sincere, even if you don't mean it.
Harry S Truman

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.
Harry S Truman

Any man who has had the job I've had and didn't have a sense of humor wouldn't still be here.
Harry S Truman

Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art.
Harry S Truman

Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.
Harry S Truman

Carry the battle to them. Don't let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don't ever apologize for anything.
Harry S Truman

Experience has shown how deeply the seeds of war are planted by economic rivalry and social injustice.
Harry S Truman

He wasn't used to being criticized, and he never did get it through his head that's what politics is all about. He was used to getting his ass kissed.
Harry S Truman

He's one of the few in the history of this country to run for high office talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time and lying out of both sides.
Harry S Truman

How do you live a long life? "Take a two-mile walk every morning before breakfast."
Harry S Truman

I do not believe there is a problem in this country or the world today which could not be settled if approached through the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount.
Harry S Truman

I don't give a damn about "The Missouri Waltz" but I can't say it out loud because it's the song of Missouri. It's as bad as "The Star-Spangled Banner" so far as music is concerned.
Harry S Truman

I don't want it torn down. I think it's the greatest monstrosity in America.
Harry S Truman

I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have in it now. I believe it has a glorious future before it - not just another sovereign nation, but as an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization.
Harry S Truman

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.
Harry S Truman

I have no desire to crow over anybody or to see anybody eating crow, figuratively or otherwise. We should all get together and make a country in which everybody can eat turkey whenever he pleases.
Harry S Truman

I have read your lousy review of Margaret's concert. I've come to the conclusion that you are an eight ulcer man on a four ulcer job Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you'll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes and perhaps a supporter below.
Harry S Truman

I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.
Harry S Truman

I never gave anybody hell! I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.
Harry S Truman

I remember when I first came to Washington. For the first six months you wonder how the hell you ever got here. For the next six months you wonder how the hell the rest of them ever got here.
Harry S Truman

I was the only calm one in the house. You see I've been shot at by experts.
Harry S Truman

I would rather have peace in the world than be President.
Harry S Truman

I've said many a time that I think the Un-American Activities Committee in the House of Representatives was the most un-American thing in America!
Harry S Truman

If I hadn't been President of the United States, I probably would have ended up a piano player in a bawdy house.
Harry S Truman

If I'd known how much packing I'd have to do, I'd have run again.
Harry S Truman

If you can't convince them, confuse them.
Harry S Truman

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Harry S Truman

In my opinion eight years as president is enough and sometimes too much for any man to serve in that capacity.
Harry S Truman

In my Sunday School class there was a beautiful little girl with golden curls. I was smitten at once and still am.
Harry S Truman

In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves... self-discipline with all of them came first.
Harry S Truman

Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.
Harry S Truman

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
Harry S Truman

It is terrible-and I mean terrible-nuisance to be kin to the president of the United States.
Harry S Truman

It is understanding that gives us an ability to have peace. When we understand the other fellow's viewpoint, and he understands ours, then we can sit down and work out our differences.
Harry S Truman

It seems like there was always somebody for supper.
Harry S Truman

It sure is hell to be president.
Harry S Truman

It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours.
Harry S Truman

It's plain hokum. If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em. It's an old political trick. But this time it won't work.
Harry S Truman

Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.
Harry S Truman

Most of the problems a President has to face have their roots in the past.
Harry S Truman

My choice early in life was either to be a piano-player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference.
Harry S Truman

My father was not a failure. After all, he was the father of a president of the United States.
Harry S Truman

Nixon is one of the few in the history of this country to run for high office talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time and lying out of both sides.
Harry S Truman

Our conference in 1945 did much more than draft an international agreement among 50 nations. [We] set down on paper the only principles which will enable civilized human life to continue to survive on this globe.
Harry S Truman

Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in.
Harry S Truman

That precedent should continue-not by a Constitutional amendment but by custom based on the honor of the man in the office.
Harry S Truman

The atom bomb was no "great decision." It was merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness.
Harry S Truman

The best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.
Harry S Truman

The buck stops here!
Harry S Truman

The human animal cannot be trusted for anything good except en masse. The combined thought and action of the whole people of any race, creed or nationality, will always point in the right direction.
Harry S Truman

The Marine Corps is the Navy's police force and as long as I am President that is what it will remain. They have a propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin's.
Harry S Truman

The only things worth learning are the things you learn after you know it all.
Harry S Truman

The President is always abused. If he isn't, he isn't doing anything.
Harry S Truman

The reward of suffering is experience.
Harry S Truman

The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members.
Harry S Truman

The White House is the finest prison in the world.
Harry S Truman

Therefore to re-establish that custom, although by a quibble I could say I've only had one term, I am not a candidate and will not accept the nomination for another term.
Harry S Truman

This administration is going to be cussed and discussed for years to come.
Harry S Truman

To hell with them. When history is written they will be the sons of bitches - not I.
Harry S Truman

Upon books the collective education of the race depends; they are the sole instruments of registering, perpetuating and transmitting thought.
Harry S Truman

We believe that all men are created equal because they are created in the image of God.
Harry S Truman

We must build a new world, a far better world - one in which the eternal dignity of man is respected.
Harry S Truman

We must have strong minds, ready to accept facts as they are.
Harry S Truman

We shall never be able to remove suspicion and fear as potential causes of war until communication is permitted to flow, free and open, across international boundaries.
Harry S Truman

We're going to be buried out here. I like the idea because I may just want to get up some day and stroll into my office. And I can hear you saying, "Harry-you oughtn't!"
Harry S Truman

Well, I wouldn't say that I was in the great class, but I had a great time while I was trying to be great.
Harry S Truman

When even one American-who has done nothing wrong-is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth-then all Americans are in peril.
Harry S Truman

When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.
Harry S Truman

Whenever a fellow tells me he's bipartisan, I know he's going to vote against me.
Harry S Truman

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.
Harry S Truman

Whenever you put a man on the Supreme Court he ceases to be your friend.
Harry S Truman

Why, this fellow don't know any more about politics than a pig knows about Sunday.
Harry S Truman

You and I are stuck with the necessity of taking the worst of two evils or none at all. So-I'm taking the immature Democrat as the best of the two. Nixon is impossible.
Harry S Truman

You can always amend a big plan, but you can never expand a little one. I don't believe in little plans. I believe in plans big enough to meet a situation which we can't possibly foresee now.
Harry S Truman

You can never get all the facts from just one newspaper, and unless you have all the facts, you cannot make proper judgements about what is going on.
Harry S Truman

You know that being an American is more than a matter of where your parents came from. It is a belief that all men are created free and equal and that everyone deserves an even break.
Harry S Truman

You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog.
Harry S Truman

The State of The Union Address As The Dickster Would Deliver It

Hungarian humorists? These guys nail the Dickster. I wager that this stream of expletives is typical of the dialogue between W (aka Mr. President) and the Dickster in the Oval Office. If this is (fair & balanced) salaciousness, so be it. Founded in 2001, give or take a year, Chortler.com has been at the cutting edge of erroneous news, inaccurate reporting and insight-free analysis ever since. With headquarters in Budapest, Hungary, Chortler is comprised of co-founders Sancho Glickman and Nicolas Sélenium, two of the leading pioneers in fictitious online journalism and muffler repair. Sancho and Nicolas hit it off instantly during their first encounter at a meeting for young Hungarian entrepreneurs. Indeed Nicolas recalls their first encounter vividly: “There was Sancho standing in front of me, and I remember saying to him, 'What are you doing standing on my foot, you idiot? Did you just pour wine down my shirt? That was an expensive shirt! You're going to pay for this Glickman!'”

[x Chortler.com]
Dick Cheney's State of the Fucking Union Address

(In the words of George W. Bush: “Dick Cheney could be president.”)

My Fellow Americans,

Thanks for that bitchin' ovation. You guys rock, man.

I just want to say at the start that our foreign policy kicks butt. I've replaced that wussy peace-loving goody two-shoes Colin Powell with that studmeister Donald Rumsfeld, my 98-year-old former Secretary of Defense. So what if we pissed off a few allies. Now those European pussies know their goddamn place in this world. That'll show those wankers not to dick around in something that's none of their fucking business anyway. Maybe some day they'll get the balls to do things on their own.

Now I don't want to feed you any crap on the domestic front. Our economy sucks at the moment. I know, I know, it's a pretty bullshit feeling right now. But despite what you might be hearing from those assholes in the Democratic Party things are going to pick up. Mark my fucking words. Besides those who disagree with me on that can go screw themselves.

In closing, I just want to say that there are some dickheads out there who are concerned about the state of public discourse in modern-day American government. Well, merde to that, as those French fags say. Those people can just kiss my ass.

Thank you and have a great fucking night.

Copyright © 2004 Chortler.com

Cancel The Elections!

The elections in Spain following the terrorist attack must have chilled the hearts of W's minions. The opposition to W's sole Major European supporter—after Britain—swept to an electoral upset. Solution for W's minions? Cancel the November elections in the U.S. A preemptive response to terrorist activity to disrupt U.S. elections. Instead of an electoral crisis in Florida, suspend elections indefinitely. As the Reichstag Fire brought the Nazis to power in 1933, a preemptive response to al Qaeda terrorism in 2004 will give us 4 more years of nuke-u-lar and Eye-rack plus the solidification of Halliburton, Inc. as the #1 federal contractor. If this is (fair & balanced) skepticism, so be it.

[x Wikipedia]
Reichstag Fire

The Reichstag fire, a pivotal event in the establishment of Nazi Germany, began at 9.14 p.m. on the night of February 27, 1933, when a Berlin fire station received an alarm that the Reichstag building, assembly location of the German Parliament, was ablaze. The fire seemed to have been started in several places, and by the time the police and firemen arrived a huge explosion had set the main Chamber of Deputies in flames. Looking for clues, the police quickly found Marinus van der Lubbe, half-naked, cowering behind the building.

Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring arrived soon after, and when they were shown Van der Lubbe, a known Communist agitator, Göring immediately declared that the fire was set by the Communists and had the party leaders arrested. Hitler took advantage of the situation to declare a state of emergency and encouraged the aging president Paul von Hindenburg to sign the Reichstag Fire Decree, abolishing most of the human rights provided for by the 1919 constitution of the Weimar Republic.

According to the police, Van der Lubbe claimed to have set the fire as a protest against the rising power of the Nazis. Under torture, he confessed again, and was brought to trial, along with the leaders of the opposition Communist Party. With their leaders in jail and denied access to the press, the Communists were badly defeated in the next election and those Communist (and some Social Democratic) deputies that were elected to the Reichstag were not permitted by the SA to take their seats. Hitler was swept to power with 44 percent of the vote and coerced the remaining minor parties to give him the two-thirds majority for his Enabling Act which gave him the right to rule by decree and suspended many civil liberties.

At his trial, Van der Lubbe was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was beheaded on July 10, 1934, three days before his 25th birthday.

On the other hand, in one of the last twitches of a constitutional state, the Reichsgericht court acquitted the communist party leadership. This infuriated Hitler, who decreed that henceforth treason – among many other offenses – would only be tried by a newly established Volksgerichtshof ("People's Court"), which became infamous for the enormous number of death sentences that it imposed under the later lead of Roland Freisler.

Historians generally agree that Van der Lubbe, sometimes described as a half-wit, was involved in the Reichstag fire. The extent of the damage, however, has led to considerable debate over whether he acted alone. Considering the speed with which the fire engulfed the building, Van der Lubbe's reputation as a fool hungry for fame, and cryptic comments by leading Nazi officials, it is generally believed that the Nazi hierarchy was involved in order to reap political gain—and it obviously did.

At Nuremberg, captured General Franz Halder, claimed that Göring had confessed to setting the fire: "At a luncheon on the birthday of Hitler in 1942, the conversation turned to the topic of the Reichstag building [fire] and its artistic value. I heard with my own ears when Göring interrupted the conversation and shouted: 'The only one who really knows about the Reichstag is I, because I set it on fire!' With that he slapped his thigh with the flat of his hand."

Göring denied that he had any involvement in the fire. "I had nothing to do with it. I deny this absolutely. I can tell you in all honesty, that the Reichstag fire proved very inconvenient to us. After the fire I had to use the Kroll Opera House as the new Reichstag and the opera seemed to me much more important than the Reichstag. I must repeat that no pretext was needed for taking measures against the Communists. I already had a number of perfectly good reasons in the forms of murders, etc."

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Reichstag Fire".

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[x Ntimes]
Terror Issue Raises Question of Vote Delay
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON, July 11 - Federal officials are looking into what legal authority if any they would have to postpone the November presidential election in the event of a terrorist strike, a Department of Homeland Security official said Sunday.

Domestic security officials referred the question last week to the Justice Department for a legal analysis after receiving a letter from DeForest B. Soaries Jr., chairman of the United States Election Assistance Commission, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Though officials warned last week that Al Qaeda might seek to disrupt the election, the official cautioned that there was no specific intelligence that such an attack was in the works. Postponing the election would be an enormous logistical task and would probably require an act of Congress and perhaps a constitutional amendment, the official said, adding, "But we're certainly looking at the issue very seriously."

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[x NYTimes]
White House Tries to Calm Hubbub Over Vote Delay
By CARL HULSE

The idea of postponing the November elections was the talk of Capitol Hill Monday, where hundreds of politicians have thought of little else for the last year but making it to Nov. 2. So even theoretical talk of moving the date — even for such a serious matter as a potential terror attack — was hard for these electoral professionals to contemplate.

"Not with this tempo," said Representative Tom Reynolds of New York, the chairman of the Republican House campaign effort and a man who is logging plenty of campaign-related hours. "Lets get it over with."

As the hubbub rose over what would be a historic change, the White House decided to quickly show that it was not seriously considering a postponement.

"This administration believes that the elections will go forward on schedule, that there is no reason to think about anything else," President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said on CNN. "We've had elections in this country when we were at war, even when we were in civil war. And we should have the elections on time. That's the view of the president, that's the view of the administration."

But Democrats could not resist getting in a few digs at their opponents over the idea, with one comparing it to recent controversies in the House over extended floor votes. "They will start the election on time," said Rahm Emanuel of Illinois. "They will just keep it open until they win."

Copyright © 2004 The New York Times Company