They said it

"The internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes."
-- Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, Chairman of Senate Commerce Committee, pushing a rewrite of the communications act.

"I have never heard of a candidate taking money out of a campaign coffer like it's an ATM. It absolutely boggles my mind. This is a woman who has completely lost touch with reality. You don't take your campaign contributors' money, whether it's yours or not, and spend it to renovate your house. This is absolutely insane."
-- Jim Dornan, former campaign manager of Rep. Katherine Harris, R-Florida, after learning that Harris had given her Senate campaign more than $3 million but then took back $100,000 to finish renovating her "historic home in Washington, D.C."

"I talked [with President Putin] about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world like Iraq, where there's a free press and free religion, and I told him that a lot of people in our country would hope that Russia would do the same thing."
-- President George W. Bush, guest of President Putin at the G8 Summit in St. Petersburg, commenting on the US policy of continuing the lone veto to Russia's entry into the 149-nation World Trade Organization.

"We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, I will tell you quite honestly."
-- President Vladimir Putin, responding to Bush's comments.

"I think I would answer that by telling you I don't think we're losing. The challenge ... is becoming more complex, and it's going to continue to be. That's why I'll tell you I think we're closer to the beginning than we are to the end of all this."
-- Gen. Peter Schoomaker, Army chief of staff, answering the question of whether the US is winning in Iraq.

"Every time we shoot at an Iraqi in this culture -- a culture of revenge, a culture of honor -- we stand the chance of taking someone who is sitting on the fence and pushing him toward the terrorists and the fighters."
-- Gen. Peter Chiarelli, US ground commander in Iraq.

"When are we going to adopt the Israeli standard of both eyes for an eye, all 32 teeth for a tooth? When we do, our enemies will at least take pause before committing another atrocity.... And speaking of coercion, whatever happened to threatening Muslims with being buried alive, stuffed in the carcass of a pig? It always worked for Milton Caniff when he was drawing 'Terry and the Pirates' 60-some years ago."
-- Robert E. Moore, letter to the editor, The Ledger, Lakeland, FL.

Finally, to demonstrate more of that wacky sense of humor shared by Bush worshippers, here's another Republican-style joke forwarded to me by a Republican cousin who lives -- of all places -- in blue-state California.

Any questions about the mental processes that make this depiction amusing to some minds?