Tim Blair

QUOTES OF 2003 - FEBRUARY

• "Idiots!" -- Ivory Coast rioters, to "ducking, crouching" French troops

• Get your tits out
Get your tits out
Get your tits out for Iraq
-- reader David Griffin composes a catchy tune for naked anti-war protesters

• "Last week's column about Osama Bin Laden's State of the Union address was one of the most pathetic, tacky, puerile and offensive bits of copy ever published in an Australian newspaper." -- Crikey.com.au takes exception to my mild opinions

• "I am eclectically left-leaning in politics, but I cannot comprehend how the left can blithely leave the Iraqi people in the hands of one of most monstrous regimes imaginable." -- The Age’s Pamela Bone

• "I hope the attempt by the French and German governments to find a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis will be successful in order to avoid senseless killing of humankind. I and many other Germans will never forget the American terror bombings of German cities during WWII and the mass slaughter of women, children and the elderly for years on end." -- Age letter-writer Karl-Heinz Walter forgets certain other events in wartime Germany

• "So Osama's voice is back, reminding us once again that the bloke the world bombed Afghanistan to get got away. He's the voice guaranteed to get world-wide coverage, and the voice says attack when the US attacks Iraq. Attack Saddam, and the enemy of Osama's enemy becomes his ally. Thanks, George." -- Margo Kingston

• "after reading your site for an hour even i could see you were a troubled young man..seek help tim buy a travel book or even take some heroin and watch a documentry on dolphins then you can come join us.your missing out tim,when your lying on your deathbed gasping for your final breath your gonnae think of all the things you never done and your gonna cry,your gonna cry like a baby tim,and your final words will be ‘can i start again please daddy’ then its lights out tim." -- reader Anne M.

• "In the few weeks of peace left to us, we are seeing a calamitous global failure of American diplomacy" -- SMH columnist Mike Carlton

• "This weekend could be one of those ‘turning points’, where suddenly the earth moves, the mood shifts, and politics is transformed in an instant ... Howard's very legitimacy could be at stake if he defies public opinion to join a unilateral strike." -- Margo Kingston gets excited about anti-war protests

• "Imagine my horror when I realised we were sharing our romantic evening with 100,000 angry extras from Mad Max II. Aside from the obvious annoyance of having dancing skeletons and filthy fat 'angels' outside our window all night, every time I opened my mouth to say 'I love you' in my most handsome tone, the words that appeared to come out were 'Peace in our time!', courtesy of some megaphone-fondling fuckwit a few yards away." -- Jack Marx’s attempt to celebrate Valentine's Day with his wife is ruined by protesters

• "We believe that in the wake of September 11, the only sane foreign policy for the US and all its allies to pursue is to examine just what caused that level of extreme hate, and act in a manner which will reduce it." -- SMH columnist Peter FitzSimons plans his Islamic conversion

• "It's not up to any head of state to bring a leader to fall, no matter who he is. It is the task of the people." -- human shield Judith Menson

• "My friends call drunken fast food 'thwapugh' because one guy was so loaded, he went into a Burger King and that was all he could say." -- Juan Gato

• "Dripping with Ivy League degrees in international relations, an accomplished classical pianist, speaking elegant French, monumentally self-assured, Condy knows everything and nothing." -- SMH columnist Mike Carlton is unaware that Condi Rice has no Ivy League degrees

• "I have an uneasy feeling that many on the intellectual left are fearful that America will lose its next war amid massive casualties – but are even more fearful that America may win with minimal casualties." -- Robert Fisk, on his readers

• "We have NO mainstream newspaper to speak for the 40% of Australians who don't want any war at all. There is no paper here like the London Mirror." -- David Marr demands a circulation-shedding Pilger rag in Australia

• "Could anything be more pathetic than the Arab demonstration against war? What on earth is it with the Arabs? Of all people, they – and they alone – are likely to suffer in this American invasion of their homeland. Yet, faced with catastrophe, the Arabs are like mice." -- Robert Fisk urges resistance

• "The next time I'm tired of listening to my wife's crap, I'm going to tell her, 'you've lost a good opportunity to keep quiet.'" -- Howard Owens takes a cue from French diplomacy

• "I am unimpressed by the grandstanding of certain European leaders." -- Jose Ramos Horta, East Timor's minister of foreign affairs and cooperation

• "He smoked cigars, drank beer and ate greasy food. He was an amazing man." -- Lisa Saxton, granddaughter of Florida’s John McMorran, who died at 113

• "Wherever you are, Osama bin Laden, I love you, brother and I do it for you and I pray for you because to me you're just a spiritual warrior standing up for Islam and propagating freedom around the world." -- Khalid, an Aboriginal Muslim interviewed on SBS-TV

• "I wouldn't say I was part of an anti-war campaign." -- Robert Fisk

Posted by Tim Blair at December 24, 2003 05:54 PM