Ash Wednesday

"Memento, homo ... quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris"
"Remember, man, you are dust and to dust you will return."

tom daschle as secretary of health & human services

You don't tap the former Senate Majority Leader to run your health care bureaucracy. That's not his skill set. You tap him to get your health care plan through Congress. You tap him because he understands the parliamentary tricks and has a deep knowledge of the ideologies and incentives of the relevant players. You tap him because you understand that health care reform runs through the Senate. And he accepts because he has been assured that you mean to attempt health care reform.

lieberman stays put

senators voted in secret for joe lieberman to keep his chairmanship. i can't believe they are keeping him on the team - but that's politics. some say he has been put on notice - he should have been put on notice months ago and this should have been the dismissal.

lieberman threatened to leave the democratic caucus if they stripped him of his chairmanship. reid said, "we'll see." i would've said, "good riddens."

sheila bair for treasury secretary

i surely hope the rumors are true and obama makes her hank paulson's replacement.

rahm emanuel as chief of staff

good cop bad cop, anyone? it's definitely exciting to have a chief of staff with chops. chicago comes to washington.

Condoleezza Rice on Race

"Descendants of slaves did not get much of a head start, and I think you continue to see some of the effects of that.. That particular birth defect makes it hard for us to confront it, hard for us to talk about it, and hard for us to realize that it has continuing relevance for who we are today,"

"What I would like understood as a black American is that black Americans loved and had faith in this country even when this country didn't love and have faith in them — and that's our legacy."

From the March 28th interview with The Washington Times