The Lexicographer's Rules

"The appalling stupidity of these men, highlighted by the ferocious peril of these hours, is the exact measure of the stupidity of the people in our states, cities, towns, and villages. When we condemn them, which we rightly do with nearly every dispatch concerning their multifarious and nonsensical agenda, we condemn ourselves. When we say these men have abandoned their strength to the administration, because of pressure, we state how great has been our own eagerness to lay down the chore of civic duty and let an administrationÑor nobodyÑpick up and exploit our united strength."

—Context. Philip Wylie describes the national population's relationship with its Congressional representatives.

"It is possible that they then developed together the strange psychiatric condition known as folie ˆ deux first described by two French psychiatrists in the nineteenth century. In this condition, two people who are mutually dependent and in unusually close association come to share the same delusion. Usually, the person with the stronger character and greater intelligence is the originator of the delusion, which he or she believes with unshakable conviction; the other, weaker and less intelligent, character goes along with it, because he or she has not the strength to resist."

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—City Journal. Theodore Dalrymple believes the horrifying tale of Marie Therese Kouao and Carl Manning, prosecuted for extreme levels of child abuse and the ultimate death of eight-year-old Anna Climbie, was made possible by professional racial hypersensitivity on the part of social workers and police. "Her body after death showed 128 marks of violence, inflicted with leather belts, metal coat hangers, a bicycle chain, and a hammer. She was burned with cigarettes and scalded with hot water. Her fingers were cut with razors. For six months, she had been made to sleep in a black plastic garbage bag (in place of clothes) in a bathtub: sometimes she had been left in cold water, bound hand and foot, for 24 hours. She was emaciated to the point of starvation; her legs were so rigidly flexed that when she was admitted to the hospital the day before her death, they could not be straightened."'

"The office of the vice president has no embassies; we have no armored divisions. There are no ships with the office of the vice president's flag on them. Our ability to influence policy is really a function of whether or not the vice president is rendering advice that the president values. It's a challenge to play that role in a meaningful way."

—New York Times. Advisor to the vice president Mary Matalin says Irv "Scooter" Lewis Libby, the vice presidents number one aide, is Dick Cheney's Dick Cheney.'

"She got out of the car and blamed the mother. She talked as if she had hit a dog, and not a human being."

—Hartford Courant. A toddler who escaped her mother's grasp ran between two parked cars. She was killed by an oncoming Nissan Maxima which kept going for about four car lengths.

"To me, the immigrant personality is about frugality, a 24/7 work ethic and a passion to succeed. It's not about being 9-to-5. It's about producing. People with this persona become obsessed with ideas. If you go into any entrepreneurial pursuit, it never succeeds if it's 9-to-5. Even if you stay longer, if your heart is really there, 5 p.m. shouldn't even be on your mind. Immigrant personalities just don't turn the light off at five and worry about things the next day. I also believe an immigrant personality has not been spoiled to expect certain things. And success isn't just measured by how many dollars you have in the bank."

—Chicago Sun-Times. Jack Sandner is the CEO of FreeDrive and RB&H Financial Services and former chairman of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.