Left-Wing Politics With Your Popcorn?

"We have all heard the appalling statistics. More than 30 million Americans work low-wage jobs, and more than half the people who began the last decade in poverty are still there. Many are single mothers, battling a system intent on getting people off welfare without lifting them out of poverty. The documentary reveals a country rife with income inequality, short-term political thinking and ineffective tracking of deadbeat dads, a country in which filling a simple prescription for a child's asthma medication can put a family in the street."
 -- New NYT movie critic Jeannette Catsoulis praising the left-wing documentary "Waging a Living," June 22.

Not to Mention the Workers Inside

"A Tower of Impregnability, The Sort Politicians Love."
 -- Headline to Nicolai Ouroussoff's highly critical appraisal of the Freedom Tower design, June 30.

Republican Party Splitting over Iraq, Take One

"President Bush, facing a growing restiveness around the country and in his own party over the constant stream of casualties in Iraq, declared Tuesday night that the daily sacrifice of American lives in Iraq 'is worth it, and it is vital to the future security of our country.'….Mr. Bush's task on Tuesday night, his aides acknowledged, was to bridge a widening gap between the daily news of American and Iraqi casualties and his periodic declarations that the United States is winning….Mr. Bush sidestepped arguments about whether his rationale for entering the war was flawed, or based on faulty evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and he made no reference to recently disclosed British government memorandums that show his major ally in the war harbored deep doubts about whether the White House had thought through the risks of the post-invasion period."
 -- David Sanger in his June 29 story on President Bush's speech at Ft. Bragg.

Republican Party Splitting over Iraq, Take Two

"President Bush set out Tuesday night to reshape perceptions of what is happening in Iraq after months in which the persistent insurgency has undermined public support for the war, provoked signs of a split in his own party and prompted inconsistent statements from administration officials about how soon things might improve."
 -- White House reporter Richard Stevenson, June 29.

When the "Denver Three" Take on Bush, It's Positively Biblical

"For President Bush, it is bad enough that his campaign to sell Americans on his overhaul of Social Security has not been considered a brilliant success. Now a flap over who got to go to one of the president's recent Social Security events has erupted in a swing state, showing the power of a dogged little anti-Bush group now called the Denver Three to irritate the Goliath of the White House."
 -- White House reporter Elisabeth Bumiller, June 27.
 

Mostly Times Movie Critics, Apparently

Ethical capitalism may sound like an oxymoron to some, but that concept is a linchpin of the nonfiction feature "A Decent Factory."
 -- First line of Manohla Dargis' review of a documentary set in China

Why Ever Would Bush Be "Hostile" Toward a Murderous Dictator?

"In late April, the president's reading of 'The Aquariums of Pyongyang' seemed to bolster his longstanding hostility toward North Korea. As American diplomats tried to revive stalled talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program, Mr. Bush told reporters in Washington that Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, was a 'dangerous person' who ran 'huge concentration camps.'"
-- James Brooke, June 18.

Wishful Thinking?

"In a few instances -- most notably the centerpiece of his second-term agenda, his call to reshape Social Security -- he is dangerously close to a fiery wreck that could have lasting consequences for his standing and for the Republican Party."
-- Richard Stevenson, June 20.

"Unborn Child" Sounds Too Pro-Life

"An Unborn Fetus With a Message for Mom."
 -- Headline to a June 26 review by Kelefa Sanneh of the single "Can I Live?" by hip-hop artist Nick Cannon's, which expresses pro-life sentiments. A fetus is by definition unborn

See TimesWatch's Quotes of Note Archive

E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org