Quratulain’s Reviews > Death of Outrage: Bill Clinton and the Assault on American Ideals > Status Update

“Americans know in their hearts , from their experience, that a statement can be partly true and still not be candid, forthright, or honorable.”

“Even during times of comfort and ease, there is an appropriate moment for anger at the proper things and with the proper person.”

“...the words of Aristotle. He wrote that those are to be praised who are angry at the proper things and the proper people, who are angry as they ought, When they ought and as long as they ought.”

“To be called an American citizen is perhaps the proudest title to which any citizen at any time in any country could ever claim. It is that great a privilege. It is that high an honor.”

“Law is the keystone of American society and political culture. If it does not apply to small matters concerning this President the day will come when the public will be asked to believe that it should be ignored in large matters...The rule of law, whether applied to matters trivial or grand, is the central magic of the American governmental experience . To abandon it today will lead to peril tomorrow.”

“Bill Clinton and his defenders are defining personal morality down; radically lowering the standards which we expect from our president; and changing for the worse the way politics is and will be practiced.”

“...Alexis de Tocqueville warned about not so much the immorality of the great as the fact that immorality may lead to greatness. When private citizens impute a rulers success mainly to some of his vices...an odious connection is formed between the ideas of turpitude and power , unworthiness and success, utility and dishonor.”

“Individuals may not have believed all the falsifications but they behaved as though they did or at least tolerated them in silence. Each individual who lived the lie, who capitulated to ‘ideological pseudo-reality’ became a petty instrument of the regime. This led to a demoralized person, upon which the system depended.

“Knowing the truth means that you have to tell the truth.”

“...This depends whether the people, in a moral and political sense will rise up and force him to comply with the law. Will they understand what is at stake? Because ultimately, all their liberties were at stake.”