Michael Kinsley Quotations

It wouldn't be fair to say that conservatives cherish property the way liberals cherish equality. But it would be fair to say that the takings clause is the conservatives recipe for judicial activism just as they say liberals have misused the equal protection clause.

In any event, the proper question isn't what a journalist thinks is relevant but what his or her audience thinks is relevant. Denying people information they would find useful because you think they shouldn't find it useful is censorship, not journalism.

The 'takings' clause of the Fifth Amendment is for conservatives what the equal protection clause of the 14th is for liberals.

They can't take your house and give it to the mayor's mistress, even if they pay you for it. But they can, apparently, take your house and tear it down to make room for a development of trendy shops and restaurants, a hotel and so on.

The case decided on Thursday, though, seemed promising to takings fans because it wasn't about compensation. It was about the requirement that any government taking must have a 'public purpose.'

He's nice enough not to want to be associated with a nasty remark but not nice enough not to make it. Lacking the courage of one's nastiness does not make one nice.

So the danger of conservative judicial activism has been averted for another year. Stay tuned.

In 1977, at least, he wished to have people believe that he shared and was proud of an attitude toward women that is not acceptable in a politician. In 2003, all he has said is that he doesn't remember the interview.

One answer is that the towns elected officials thought that the project served a public purpose and that the various subsidies and favors were worth the price. But they may or may not have thought this.

A Supreme Court decision that concessions of this sort were unconstitutional would have taken them off the table and actually increased the effective sovereignty of elected officials.

He hasn't said whether he remembers the episode itself - or, if he doesn't, whether that is because it never happened or because it happened too often to keep track. More important, he hasn't said what he thinks about it all from the perspective of 2003.

A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth.

Of course, conservatives always claim to be against judicial activism.

Conservatives and liberals alike have been waiting for this moment for a third of a century.

In those days, the late 1970s, one of the leading politicians was a soon-to-be uncle by marriage of Arnold Schwarzenegger, named Ted Kennedy.

Almost any government activity can also be seen as taking property 'without just compensation.' The basic model of an unconstitutional 'taking' would be if the government threw you out of your house.

If sexual intercourse, as the poets tell us, began in 1963, it was another decade and a half before the American political system began to take notice.

In recurring episodes over the next couple of decades, the minority view gradually won. A profusion of factors differentiates each case from the others, including naked partisanship on both sides, but the trend has been clear.

The logic is often far-fetched - how does medical marijuana affect interstate commerce? - and some conservatives would like judges to start throwing out federal laws wholesale on commerce clause grounds. The court once again said no thanks.

I have always enjoyed the myth of The New Republic's golden age. The magazine is still very much in the Washington mix. It doesn't necessarily move the debate, but I think it can stir things up.

Unless you do something aggressive (about housing) soon, you're going to get into trouble deeper and deeper, faster and faster.

When one does all these things to increase the attractiveness of the place, does that not drive us toward a place where only the rich are able to take advantage of it? That was a concern of ours from the very beginning. The cause is what might be called non-price sensitive demand, people that can pay virtually anything. We were thinking ahead enough to realize it would get worse very quickly. We started thinking about this in '75. It may be the most aggressive affordable housing in the country. It wasn't enough.

What did this guy do wrong? Was it having these views, or merely expressing them? Expecting journalists not to develop opinions, strong opinions even, goes against human nature and the particular nature of journalists.

A couple of weeks ago, the court ruled that states cannot exempt themselves from federal laws against the medical use of marijuana.

are unlikely to devote a continuous half-hour or more to any one site the way you might read a traditional paper magazine in one sitting.

This agreement with America Online will introduce millions of additional people to the fastest way to get smart about the news and events of the week.

The most embarrassing thing (in the Times' package) is that (Miller's editors) told her to stop writing about that but she kept writing about it, anyway.

That is worth keeping in mind while you try to decide whether American credibility or Iraqi prosperity or Middle East stability can justify the cost in blood and treasure. And don't forget to factor in the likelihood that the war will actually produce these fine things.

That seemed like an insult, ... I guess it was. Even after that, I thought he maybe put it badly and he didn't mean to be sending out these go-away vibes. But it turns out he put it exactly right.

The Internet beat TV and print to this story, and ultimately forced it on them, for one simple reason: lower standards.

Many 'hard' scientists regard the term 'social science' as an oxymoron. Science means hypotheses you can test, and prove or disprove. Social science is little more than observation putting on airs.

I have a saying: the scandal isn't what's illegal, the scandal is what's legal.

The takings clause of the Fifth Amendment is for conservatives what the equal protection clause of the 14th is for liberals.

The definition of a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth.

Anything that keeps a politician humble is healthy for democracy.

Journalistic conventions make it hard for reporters to deal with a big, complicated lie.

Is there any other democracy where the voters are as spoiled as they are in the United States? Especially, of course, in certain states, such as Iowa and New Hampshire, where the old joke is literally true about the citizens who say they haven't yet formed an opinion about a candidate because they've only met the fellow a few times.

What could be more absurd than the idea that genuine anti-Christian prejudice is a major force in American politics.

Americans don't want leadership. They want alchemy.

There is a deadening conformity in the culture of cyberspace in which we don't intend to participate.

The solution when you don't like someone's speech is not to silence that person, or that corporation. It's more and louder speech of your own.

A gaffe is a politician inadvertently telling an inconvenient truth.

If hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, piousness is virtue paying tribute to itself.

Among the social sciences, economists are the snobs. Economics, with its numbers and graphs and curves, at least has the coloration and paraphernalia of a hard science. It's not just putting on sandals and trekking out to take notes on some tribe.

The equal protection clause was a handy tool because just about anything the government does or doesn't do can be framed as treating people unequally.