* “Every Arab ruler, from colonels to monarchs, now knows something new: fear.”–Michael Gerson, Washington Post.
* “Let’s just call a spade a spade. A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy air defenses. Then you can fly planes around the country and not worry about our guys being shot down.”–Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
* “Like it or hate it, it is really effective. In fact, viewership of Al-Jazeera is going up in the United States because it is real news.”–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
* “That’s when it really starts to do damage.”–PFGBest analyst Phil Flynn on the impact of oil-price increases once they hit $120 per barrel.
* “It’s crazy that we have no energy plan. I think you’ll have $4 gasoline by Memorial Day.”–T. Boone Pickens, whose own plan is to encourage the use of natural gas as a motor fuel.
* “Both the American military and higher education have been engines of inclusion and wellsprings of service. The relationship we renew today marks progress in that common pursuit.”–Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust in officially welcoming ROTC back on campus.
* “…There are at most five plausible Republican presidents on the horizon–Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, former Utah Gov. and departing ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. … But the nominee may emerge much diminished by involvement in a process cluttered with careless, delusional, ego-maniacal, spotlight-chasing candidates to whom the sensible American majority would never entrust a lemonade stand, much less nuclear weapons.–George Will, Washington Post.
* “The economy has been clawing its way back up the side of the mountain for the better part of a year, and these numbers are consistent with that. Where we are is the process of natural healing of our economy.”–Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill on recent numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing the unemployment rate dipped to 8.9 per cent last month and employers added 192,000 jobs.
* “Public sector unions and private sector unions are very different creatures. Private sector unions push against the interests of shareholders and management; public sector unions push against the interests of taxpayers. Private sector union members know that their employers could go out of business, so they have an incentive to mitigate their demands; public sector union members work for state monopolies and have no such interest.”–David Brooks, New York Times.
* “Think outside the pyramid.”–St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster to residents who turned out for a public forum on overhauling the Pier.
* “Rail successfully moves goods across long distances and, when well-planned and managed, can move people too. To argue differently is to join the cult of doom-and-gloomers who seem to enjoy disparaging all efforts to improve our quality of life or simply believe that we are incapable of doing things on time, on budget and of high quality.”–Hillsborough County Commissioner Mark Sharpe.
* “No one’s allowed to get married that week.”–Tampa Assistant Police Chief Marc Hamlin in noting that no TPD vacations or annual leaves are granted for the week of Gasparilla.
* “I’m a Democrat and proud of it, but as the city’s next mayor, my job would be to fix and build things, not get bogged down in partisan politics.”–Bob Buckhorn.
* “It (partisan politics ) doesn’t serve anyone well. The higher up you go on the political ladder, the more you have to follow party policy and toe the line, and I’m nobody’s puppet.”–Rose Ferlita.