Pith & Vinegar

On Dickie Scruggs’s longtime secretary: “If Balducci thinks he knows where bodies are buried, the money is that Charlene Bosarge knows where the cemetery is.” … observer

On Dickie and Zach Scruggs and Sid Backstrom: “Some defendants can’t make themselves take a plea because it is so final. If you can delay, SOMETHING could always happen – like the Rapture in which case, from the way I see it, they’d be beamed up to heaven and all the honest people will be left on earth.” … Jane

On Monica Goodling’s engagement to one of the blogging founders of Redstate: “Tsk tsk, the language they use at those sites! I’m wondering if her mentors from Regent might not look through the postings, disapprovingly, and ask her, sternly, if the posters kiss the President’s ass with those lips!” … Mary

On John McCain: “A longtime pol proclaiming his purity and virtue may be the actual working definition of hubris.” … riddenword

On Tim Balducci: “Is it just me (and it may be partly chatter I’m hearing in North Miss.) but does it seem like Balducci was heading for a world-class splat all along last year? Sort of Flem Snopes meets Icarus.” … nmisscommenter 

On justice in Mississippi: “But here I am, I have a little motion for summary judgment I’m opposing on Friday, am I expected to bring a gift?” … Jane

On Mississippi: “In the present day it is Mississippi’s juxtapositions, emotional and in remembrance, and the tensions of its paradoxes that still drive us crazy … the gulf between its manners and morals, the apposition of its kindness and violence.” … Willie Morris

On Mississippi and “Scruggsiana”: “If it weren’t for conflict of interest, we so small we might not have any interest at all.” … nowdoucit  

On presidential credibility: “The Bush Administration has always been a government with a completely unpredictable past.” … Scott Horton

On George W. Bush: “He’s destruction and chaos in cowboy boots that will never touch a stirrup.” … Mary

On Fran Townsend’s resignation letter: “The unmistakable signature of a sycophant.” … Scott Horton

On Barack Obama’s announced opposition to Michael Mukasey for Attorney General: “‘However,’ Obama continued, ‘I do plan to ask Judge Mukasey to sing a cover of “Werewolves of London” for my next campaign sortie. Yeah, I know, he was an adviser to some crazy guy and is pro-torture and all, but heck, Dems are too and it’s a big tent, and besides, when he puts his head back and yowls out aa-oooooo, it moves my soul’” … Mary

On the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize: “Al Gore wins – and this time, no one can take it away from him” … headline in The Guardian

On a bumper strip near you?

Rudy Giuliani
My other wife is 9/11

Millionares for Mitt
Because dogs and poor people suck.

Vote Tancredo
Because Sam Brownback isn’t insane enough.

Vote Sam Brownback
Doesn’t “Tancredo” sound ethnic to you?

McCain
I’m a still a maverick. Now give me a dollar.

Fred Thompson for President
Hey, baby. This is what passes for sexy.

Huckabee ‘08
I’m running too, goddamn it!

Kids for Ron Paul
Like Optimus Prime, but with lower taxes.

… Hunter at Kos (and don’t miss the rest).

On the GOP ‘08 convention logo (an elephant bending over Minneapolis in a wide stance): “GOP mocks humor gods one too many times.” … Josh Marshall

On Gooper gloom: “It’s always darkest right before you get clobbered over the head with a pipe wrench. But then it actually does get darker.” … unnamed GOP pollster to WaPo

On Harry Reid: “A worm in sheep’s clothing.” … an anonymous reader

On Alberto Gonzales: “He’s the first Attorney General who thought that ‘to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth’ were three different things.”… Rahm Emanuel

On Tucker Carlson: “Carlson beat up a man? A fully grown man? Please. Tucker Carlson could be beaten into submission with nothing more than a heavy thought.”… a reader at Talking Points Memo

Response to Linda Chavez’s comment that Larry Craig is being persecuted for being a Republican: “Quick: Start a New 501c3.”… Josh Marshall