Peter

Allied forces must win big enough to change Iraq’s politics. It is not sufficient to drive Saddam from Kuwait, waggle a minatory finger at him, and say, “Be a good boy and don’t ever do that again.” (Thomas A. Stewart, War/Cover Stories: Winning the Peace, Fortune, 02/25/1991, p. 28.)

Monday, June 10 [1940], found Churchill in a foul mood.  Italy had declared war on Britain and France, drawing from him a minatory quip: “People who go to Italy to look at ruins won’t have to go as far as Naples and Pompeii in the future.” (Erik Larson, The Splendid and the Vile, [Crown], 2020, p. 61.)…

[French; pronounced gōb-¦moosh. The word derives from the French gober, “to swallow,” and mouche, “a fly.”] [Question to investment columnist: Our stockbroker recommended that we buy SNAP stock and we lost money on the investment. Answer:] You guys remind me of a circle of yakking gobemouche’s with too much money, too much time on your hands and not enough common sense.(Malcolm Berko, “Oh Snap I Made a Poor Investment,” The Oklahoman, 05/21/2017.)…

You have agreed and the majority and minority have agreed to several changes that have, in my judgment, greatly improved the [anti-terrorism] bill, left it a very effective law enforcement effort. … And we have been able to do that by working together between Thursday and today. Another week would make it do even better. It’s no criticism of your work product to note that no one can excogitate the perfect [antiterrorism] bill here, and working together helped. (Rep. Barney Frank (speaker), Media Coverage of Activities Regarding Government Response to Terrorism, Talk of the Nation (NPR), 09/24/2001.)…

[Pragmatism is] in its bare bones, the view that the meaning of ideas is simply to be found in terms of their consequences. … The pragmatists were only interested in results. It was their distinctive feature and their proudest boast. That, therefore, is how they must be judged. To do so in detail here would require an unwarranted excursus. (Robin Harris, Post-Civil War Thought; Four American Thinkers Who Made America Modern, The Washington Times, 05/27/2001, p. B8.)…

Pat Swindall is in prison in Atlanta where it is costing the taxpayers over $25,000. He is no threat to society. And, his family is [missing a] godly father. I didn’t know Pat personally in the days when he got into trouble with the law, but I can assure you that the illation [that he is] even remotely involved with drugs or drug money, as several local and national papers infer, is pernicious and unfounded. (James Keffer, Gwinnett Voices: Readers’ Letters, Tell Us What You Think, The Real Tragedy Behind Officer’s Death, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 04/21/1994, p. J4.)…