Quotable & Notable

“It’s war!”

-- The liberal Americablog.com’s first posting on the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court

“It’s important to have this fight.”

-- David Keene of the American Conservative Union who said the fight for Alito will prepare conservatives for the 2006 elections. “There’s nothing to get the blood flowing like a good fight,” he said.

“It’s the fight that everyone hoped to avoid.”

-- Professor Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond who foresees the fight over Alito intensifying the battle for the vast middle ground of voters who can swing an election

“Nothing brings people of faith together more than the culture wars.”

-- Catholic League president William Donohue explaining why “traditional Catholics, evangelical Protestants and Orthodox Jews are coming together in support of Samuel Alito”

“There are many wonderful and excellent priests in the church who have a gay orientation, are chaste and celibate, and are very effective ministers of the Gospel. Witch hunts and gay bashing have no place in the church.”

-- Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., president of the U.S. bishops’ conference writing in his diocesan newspaper, the Inland Register, about a forthcoming Vatican document on gay men and the priesthood

“We wanted something more striking than the ordinary bumper sticker.”

-- Steve Pearcy who to protest the war in Iraq hung from the eaves of his Sacramento, Calif., house the figure of a U.S. serviceman in desert camouflage, a noose around the neck and a sign: “Bush Lied. I Died.”

“One of the most common criticisms preview audiences had was that ‘the actor playing McCarthy’ was over the top.”

-- Film critic Andy Klein reviewing “Good Night and Good Luck,” about TV news icon Edward R. Murrow and the redbaiting Sen. Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy plays himself through archival footage.

National Catholic Reporter, November 11, 2005