Senator Quotes
More Senator Quotes
Strictures, reproaches, and intemperate speeches from the Senator of Louisiana are really the wailings of an apostle of despair; he has lost control of himself, he is trying to play billiards with elliptical billiard balls and a spiral cue.
huey long— Henry Fountain Ashurst
If Senator Reid had come to me and said, 'This is a problem,' which he never did, I would have said, 'Let's talk about it.' I would have said, 'Let's bring in the Intelligence Committee or the leaders, and let's talk about it in a civil, a dignified, a respectful way.'
bill frist— Senate Goes Into Rare Closed Session, Fox News, November 1, 2005.
The Senator from Wisconsin cannot frighten me by exclaiming, "My country, right or wrong." In one sense I say so too. My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.
carl schurz— Remarks in the Senate (29 February 1872) He was here responding to the famous slogan derived from a statement of Stephen Decatur: "Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong."
On John Edwards, U.S. Senator from North Carolina: "The stump speech of pretty-boy Senator John Edwards, which I've heard often enough to be able to mouth along with him, has room for everything, including vivid, wrenching portraits of despair: 'Tonight somewhere in America a ten-year-old little girl will go to bed hungry, hoping and praying that tomorrow will not be as cold as today because she doesn't have the coat to keep her warm.' You'd have to have a heart of stone not to be doubled up in laughter at that line.
mark steyn— "It's the war, stupid", 1 March 2004
You may have noticed that Senator Obama's supporters have been saying some pretty nasty things about western Pennsylvania lately. And you know, I couldn't agree with them more.
john mccain— Said in a speech near Kansas City, Missouri, October 20, 2008.[45]
There's nothing noble or selfless about politicians and there never has been. Putting it charitably, Profiles in Courage is a compendium of Democratic mythology, ghostwritten for an ambitious young Massachusetts Senator who never did a thing for himself if he could pay to have it done by others.
l. neil smith— "Pursuing Invariably the Same Object"[37] 18 April 2010
Long before Savage successfully campaigned to turn anti-gay Senator Rick Santorum's last name into a hilariously insulting noun, Landers laid the groundwork for such subversive political activism.
— Sullivan, Catey (June 5, 2008). "No question: 'Answer lady' is utterly perfect". The Antioch Review (Pioneer Press).
The junior Senator from Wisconsin, by his reckless charges, has so preyed upon the fears and hatreds and prejudices of the American people that he has started a prairie fire which neither he nor anyone else may be able to control.
Joseph McCarthy— Senator J. William Fulbright (D-Arkansas), as quoted in Enough Rope (1969) by Arthur Vivian Watkins
I am a free man, an American, a United States Senator, and a Democrat, in that order.
lyndon b. johnson— 1958 Texas Quarterly, winter issue.
It isn't just dust that is settling in Korea, Senator, it is American blood.
Douglas MacArthur— 1951 During the Senate inquiry on Mac Arthur's dismissal. Reported in the NewYork Times, 2 May.
No man, however strong, can serve ten years as schoolmaster, priest, or Senator, and remain fit for anything else. All the dogmatic stations in life have the effect of fixing a certain stiffness of attitude forever, as though they mesmerised the subject.
henry adams— Ch. 7. (The Education of Henry Adams (1907))
Although the Senate is much given to admiring in its members a superiority less obvious or quite invisible to outsiders, one Senator seldom proclaims his own inferiority to another, and still more seldom likes to be told of it.
henry adams— Ch. 7. (The Education of Henry Adams (1907))
When the wind is right, a faint odor of kerosene is exhaled from Senator McCarthy.
Joseph McCarthy— Ray Bradbury, in Nation (2 May 1953), and quoted in "About Fahrenheit 451 : Historical Influences for Fahrenheit 451"
This is the first time in my experience, and I was ten years in the Senate, that I ever heard of a Senator trying to discredit his own Government before the world.… Your telegram is not only not true and an insolent approach to a situation that should have been worked out between man and man but it shows conclusively that you are not even fit to have a hand in the operation of the Government of the United States.
Joseph McCarthy— Harry S. Truman, drafted response (probably unsent) to a telegram received on 11 February 1950. [1]
Could we possibly have a nominee who hasn't won any of the significant states -- outside of Illinois? That raises some serious questions about Senator Obama.
mark penn— [3]
[On Senator Jesse Helms] I think he ought to be worried about what's going on in the Good Lord's mind, because if there is retributive justice, he'll get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will.
nina totenberg— Inside Washington, PBS, July 8, 1995. [1]
— Quoted in "Hate speech of the left" by Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe, December 28, 2003. [2]
The junior Senator from Wisconsin, by his reckless charges, has so preyed upon the fears and hatred of uninformed and credulous people that he has started a prairie fire, which neither he nor anyone else may be able to control.
j. william fulbright— On Joseph McCarthy (November 30, 1954), in Fulbright of Arkansas: The Public Positions of a Private Thinker (1963)
… less real than such threats as a man with a gun, a woman with a knife, or a U.S. Senator with an idea.
dean r. koontz— Chapter 38
I am sure that Senator Clinton would make a good President. I happen to be a Republican and would support, obviously, a Republican nominee, but I have no doubt that Senator Clinton would make a good President.
john mccain— Meet the Press (20 February 2005)
Like environmentalists, politicians generally privilege flora and fauna over folks. (NIMBYs excepted. Senator Edward Kennedy is a not-in-my-backyard environmentalist: he opposes wind farms in Nantucket Sound, offshore from his Hyannis Port compound.)
ilana mercer— "In Defense of the Fence,"WorldNetDaily.com, April 4, 2008.
If Senator Kennedy is elected President of the United States, the government of Chile will take the necessary measures.
augusto pinochet— Speech (11 September 1979), quoted in "Las frases para el bronce de Pinochet."
Senator Menendez seems to think that tax increases create jobs and investment. I believe that private businesses create jobs, and that investment will flow to states with good economic climates and good governance, especially in a globalized economy.
— Tom Kean, Jr. On Taxes (May 12, 2006); "Congress Agrees on Tax Relief Extension", Tom's Blog" (May 12, 2006)
Senator Vrooman (Ambrose Bierce)
— Fictional future senator used as one of five examples under "Epitaph", from The Devil's Dictionary.
I'm sorry, m'lady... I'm... not sure I...I've failed you, Senator.
— Who: Cordé (handmaiden to Padmé Amidala)
— Source: Killed in an assassination attempt on Padmé. She was acting as a body double for Padmé when the ship she was on was blown up by Zam Wessel. Padmé was piloting one of the starfighters escorting the ship.
Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.
— Jamie Raskin, 2006-03-01
— Raskin was responding to state senator Nancy Jacobs at a hearing on a proposed Maryland constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage [2]. At the time, Raskin was himself a candidate for senate.
The Senator has got his facts wrong. I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11, but there's clearly an established Iraqi track record with terror.
— At the Vice Presidential Debates, October 5, 2004. [17]
That’s what I like about you, Senator, you’re kicking it old-school.
russ feingold— Jon Stewart, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, 2005-03-23
The Wisconsin Senator gets up and says out loud what half of the country is thinking and talks about every day. This President broke the law and lied about it; he trashed the Constitution and hides himself in the flag.
russ feingold— William Greider The Nation, March 2006
Americans ought be listening to Russ Feingold in these defining days for the Republic, because what the Democratic Senator from Wisconsin is saying goes to the heart of the question of whether a nation founded in revolt against monarchy will be ruled by laws or by the crude whims of an intemperate sovereign and his out-of-control administration.
russ feingold— The Nation, Feb 12 2006
