Quotes from Neil Macdonald

The office of the president is meant to confer dignity.

Trump is the white evangelicals' version of V.I. Lenin's 'useful idiot,' a character who is helping achieve their apocalyptic fever dreams, but who will perish along with the rest of us as the faithful perch in the clouds.

The 'vote for me because the other guy is scary,' nana-nana-poo-poo stuff I just find useless.

Some economists seem to think that only a credentialed economist has the right to be utterly wrong about an issue of economics. Their contempt for amateurs - columnists with broad audiences, for example - would sear the lungs if inhaled.

During my years in the United States, I met a lot of evangelicals; they comprise a quarter of the American population, and are utterly unlike most Christians you'll encounter in this country.

The hungry little radge never takes a vacation, which is why, when legislatures aren't sitting and other news-generating institutions are on summer schedule, assignment desks will pounce on anything that even smells like news.

I seem to have a missing gene when it comes to organized sports. Televised events bore me and I literally fear the crowds at live matches.

Trump's America is a midden. To hell with it. I am glad I don't live there anymore, and doubly glad to read about unlicensed barbers and annexes to grand old Ottawa hotels and the terrible dishonesty of the Canada Food Guide.

It is hard for the media to outright label a sitting president a white supremacist, or even a garden variety racist. If Trump was still a private citizen, this would be easier.

Yes, America's vast foreign service and intelligence organs may disagree with that assessment. And some of Israel's most senior intelligence figures regard Iran as dangerous, but rational. But in Netanyahu's view, diplomacy has had its moment.

Can we agree there are no stupid questions? Probably not. But let's try anyway.

Call me radical, but I've always thought there are at least two subjects on which journalists are absolutely entitled to express public opinions: freedom of expression, and attacks on journalists.

In fact, American presidents never apologize for what America does in war, because in the American mind, all its wars are defensive, always fought from the high moral ground, always good versus evil.

No dog means no disgusting surprises on carpets - thank goodness for those irrigating vacuums they sell at Canadian Tire - no hefty vet bills, no destruction of everything from eyeglasses to baseboards to legs of furniture, and no responsibility.

I've seen former vice president, and now Democratic leadership candidate Joe Biden up close. He seemed a pleasant fellow. But I'm damned if I can remember anything he said, besides how much he loves everybody.

Quibbling over the definition of genocide does nothing but help obscure the long history of vicious racism and undeniable suffering of Indigenous people in this country. It's bad enough whatever you want to call it.

America's habit of distilling vicious, pitiless, cynical reality into a morality play can be an oasis.

In 2008, Obama rode to victory in good part by wearing the openness face, casting the Bush administration as intrusive, secretive hawks who had little regard for individual privacy or civil liberties.

Political professionals on all sides of the Ottawa aisle understand the same basic fact: given the electoral realities in this country, there is no path to victory without the support of urban centres and/or Quebec.

The word nationalism, to most people, has a virtuous whiff; historically, it's been conflated with terms like patriotism and loyalty and solidarity with one's civic tribe.

Our virtuous system is already corrupt. Does anyone seriously think that cabinet ministers or captains of industry or powerful officials wait in the same lines as the rest of us?