Quotes of the day

The most enthusiastic fans say that sports are compelling because they imitate life -- which they certainly do in some ways. But at a time when political conversation, to name one crucial form of public communication, is getting steadily dumbed down, John Madden's retirement should remind us that we can do better. His demanding and fruitful style represents a way that life can and should imitate sports. How often does that happen?--Leonard Cassuto

... [environmental] groups are putting local environmental concerns first and the planet second. Wind farms, nuclear power plants and hydroelectric dams are ways of providing clean energy, which would reduce carbon emissions and the threat of global warming.--Ed Glaeser

In hot, humid Houston or frigid Minneapolis, people use plenty of energy to artificially recreate what California has naturally. Environmentalists should, presumably, be out there lobbying for more homes in coastal California, but instead, for more than four decades, California environmental groups, such as Save the Bay, have fought new construction in the most temperate, lowest carbon-emission area of the country. --Ed Glaeser

The optimal capital structure evolves constantly, and successful corporate leaders must constantly consider six factors -- the company and its management, industry dynamics, the state of capital markets, the economy, government regulation and social trends. When these six factors indicate rising business risk, even a dollar of debt may be too much for some companies. Over the past four decades, many companies have struggled with the wrong capital structures. During cycles of credit expansion, companies have often failed to build enough liquidity to survive the inevitable contractions.--Michael Milken

You were talking about an appropriations bill a few weeks ago about $8 billion being minuscule -- $8 billion in earmarks. We were talking about that and you said that that $100 million is a lot but $8 billion is small?--Jake Tapper

We've come to [the brink of a backdoor bank nationalization] in part because the Obama Administration is afraid to ask Congress for the money for a meaningful bank recapitalization. And it may need that money now in part because Mr. Paulson's Treasury insisted on buying preferred stock in all the big banks instead of looking at each case on its merits. That decision last fall squandered TARP money on banks that probably didn't need it and left the Administration short of funds for banks that really do.--WSJ Editorial Board

The good news is that Mr. Obama is smart enough to know that the relative obscurity of Bagram, not to mention the approval he has received on Guantanamo, enables him to do the right thing here without, as Mr. Greenwald notes, worrying too much that he will be called to account for a substantive about-face. The bad news is that we seem to have reached the point where our best hope for sensible war policy now depends largely on presidential cynicism.--William McGurn

One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn't put out the memos that showed the success of the effort. And there are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity. They have not been declassified.--Dick Cheney