Quotes of the day

We may be able to get a Negro President in less than 40 years.--Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1964

Mr. Obama will be the country's first African-American president, but he is actually far more than that. He will be the first president whose ethnic identity is not linked to the extreme northwest corner of Europe. All 42 men who have been president of the United States up to now were either British, Irish or Dutch in ancestry -- except Dwight Eisenhower ...--John Steele Gordon

"Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."--George Washington at Valley Forge

I'm seeing this inauguration through my mother's 85-year-old eyes. She is here with me in D.C. and will be at the inauguration. Her husband, my beloved departed father, was a Tuskegee Airman. He was part of a segregated military. My mom will be filled with emotion when she witnesses the swearing in of an African-American commander-in-chief. Yes we can.--Robin Roberts

... the amount of stimulus from the spending package would be far less than estimated in a study by the incoming Chairperson of the Council of Economic Advisers ("The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan", by Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, January 9, 2009). The activities stimulated by the package to a large extent would draw labor and capital away from other productive activities. In addition, the government programs were unlikely to be as well planned as the displaced private uses of these resources.--Gary Becker

... there are those who will never forgive Mr. Bush for not losing a war they had all declared unwinnable.--William McGurn

[Eric] Holder now concedes that Presidents have inherent powers that even a statute can't abridge, notwithstanding his campaign speeches. That makes us feel better about a General Holder on national security. But his concession is further evidence that the liberal accusations about "breaking the law" and "illegal wiretaps" of the last several years were mostly about naked partisanship. Mr. Holder's objection turns out to be merely the tactical political one that the Bush Administration would have been better off negotiating with Congress for wiretap approval, not that it was breaking the law. Now he tells us.--WSJ Editorial Board

... from passages in Genesis, it is clear that the colour of domestic animals was at that early period attended to.--Charles Darwin