In their words
A selection of quotations from people in recent news stories, big and small
“He committed significant violations of department policy. I don’t think he’s getting his job back.”
– Attorney Rob Cossey, whose client, Spokane police Officer Jay Olsen was acquitted of assault charges over an off-duty incident in which he was armed and drunk in a bar, and wound up chasing and shooting a man he contended was trying to steal his pickup.
“If you don’t return it on your own, we’ll do it for you.”
– U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., in a statement warning AIG executives that Congress will find a way to recoup the millions in bonus money paid to them out of federal bailout money.
“It takes a while to get your sea legs on that front, especially if you’re a member of Congress.”
– Resident scholar Norman Ornstein from the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, describing a tendency among some Cabinet members who are fresh from Congress and inclined to speak their own minds on public issues, sometimes in conflict with the administration’s.
“Every one of us has baggage in the eyes of the citizens of this region.”
– Spokane County Commissioner Todd Mielke, speculating about how service-delivery responsibilities would be distributed in the event of consolidation of local governments.
“I reject the notion that each and every bit of spending we direct is corrupt or wasteful.”
– U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., defending earmarks in the federal budget.
“A lot of tribes used to say, ‘Don’t get sick after June.’ Now it’s like, ‘Don’t get sick after January.’ ”
– Port Gamble Tribe health director Danette Ives, commenting on the rising mortality rates among Native Americans, who exhaust the health care portion of their annual funding cycle sooner than they used to.
“It does give us pause when we tell journalism students or the public that he’s not a journalist. He can be one when he wants to be.”
– Former television correspondent Charles Bierbauer, now dean of mass communications and information studies at the University of South Carolina, discussing comedian Jon Stewart who recently assailed financial commentators, especially CNBC’s Jim Cramer, for misleading information leading up to the nation’s economic crisis.
“What is morally just and right – that’s not my job.”
– U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts, telling an audience at the University of Idaho that the judges must not let personal values interfere with an objective application of the law to the facts of a case.