WIST Quotations

Ivins, Molly -- Essay (1995-12-24), “Look to the Children of the Poor in This Season of Budget-Slashing,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Dave — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 16:18:27 +0000

How the American right managed to convince itself that the programs to alleviate poverty are responsible for the consequences of poverty will someday be studied as a notorious mass illusion. In the meantime, real children — kids who get earaches and like Big Bird and are crabby when they aren’t fed and whose eyes widen in wonder when they meet Santa Claus — will pay the price for this pernicious folly.

Molly Ivins (1944–2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
Essay (1995-12-24), “Look to the Children of the Poor in This Season of Budget-Slashing,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram
(Source)

Collected in You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You (1998).

Yevtushenko, Yevgeny -- In The Observer (15 Dec 1991)

Dave — Mon, 19 Sep 2022 16:55:40 +0000

Why is it that right-wing bastards always stand shoulder to shoulder in solidarity, while liberals fall out among themselves?

Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933–2017) Russian poet, writer, film director, academic [Евге́ний Евтуше́нко, Evgenij Evtušenko]
In The Observer (15 Dec 1991)
(Source)

Graham, Billy -- “Billy Graham: America Is Not God’s Only Kingdom,” Parade Magazine (1 Feb 1981)

Dave — Tue, 06 Sep 2022 05:30:04 +0000

I told him to preach the Gospel. That’s our calling. I want to preserve the purity of the Gospel and the freedom of religion in America. I don’t want to see religious bigotry in any form. Liberals organized in the ’60s, and conservatives certainly have a right to organize in the ’80s, but it would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.

Billy Graham (1918–2018) American evangelist, revivalist, author [William Franklin Graham Jr.]
“Billy Graham: America Is Not God’s Only Kingdom,” Parade Magazine (1 Feb 1981)
(Source)

A comment Graham said he gave to Jerry Falwell, head of the Moral Majority. Usually quoted in an abbreviated version:

I don't want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.

Hofstadter, Richard -- “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” Herbert Spencer Lecture, Oxford (Nov 1963)

Dave — Wed, 09 Dec 2020 16:42:41 +0000

But the modern right wing, as Daniel Bell has put it, feels dispossessed: America has been largely taken away from them and their kind, though they are determined to try to repossess it and to prevent the final destructive act of subversion. The old American virtues have already been eaten away by cosmopolitans and intellectuals; the old competitive capitalism has been gradually undermined by socialistic and communistic schemers; the old national security and independence have been destroyed by treasonous plots, having as their most powerful agents not merely outsiders and foreigners as of old but major statesmen who are at the very centers of American power. Their predecessors had discovered conspiracies; the modern radical right finds conspiracy to be betrayal from on high.

Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970) American historian and intellectual
“The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” Herbert Spencer Lecture, Oxford (Nov 1963)
(Source)

Reprinted in Harpers (Nov 1964).

Eisenhower, Dwight David -- Interview (1963-11-05) by William Stringer, “Midroad View at Gettysburg,” Christian Science Monitor

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

People talk about the middle of the road as though it were unacceptable. Actually, all human problems, excepting morals, come into the gray areas. Things are not all black and white. There have to be compromises. The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.

Dwight David Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general, US President (1953–61)
Interview (1963-11-05) by William Stringer, “Midroad View at Gettysburg,” Christian Science Monitor
(Source)

I cannot find an online copy of the source, but it is cited by the Eisenhower Presidential Library, as well as other reliable sources.