Watercooler quotes
“We need a czar. And we need czars on top of czars. Then you need a super czar. And a czarina.”
– Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security, on the impulse in Washington to constantly expand bureacuracies
“Here in America we are descended in spirit from revolutionaries and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine.”
– President Dwight Eisenhower, 1954
“I am basically going back to my corporate roots.”
“Considering how taxpayers’ money around Washington isn’t respected, a day shouldn’t go by without having an inspector general checking on it.”
- Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA)
“We are an ‘insight’ organization. If DoD customers ask us for information, we will provide that information as requested.”
- Richard Cole, spokesman for the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA), in response to allegations that the DCMA improperly assisted Lockheed Martin and the Air Force in their efforts to undermine then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s decision to terminate the C-130J program
“Sexual relationships with prohibited sources cannot, by definition, be arms’ length.”
- Department of Interior Inspector General report on a wide-ranging ethics scandal involving inappropriate relations between government officials in charge of oil royalties and employees of energy companies
“America is more communist than China right now.”
- Commodities investor Jim Rogers, chief executive of New York-based Rogers Holdings, on the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae bailouts
“Too much money, no adult supervision”
- Winslow Wheeler, Center for Defense Information, on the defense procurement system
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008040526_tankermess09.html
“To be really good at oversight, you have to be very comfortable making people uncomfortable. I don’t think he’s cut from that cloth.”
- POGO’s Danielle Brian on Senator Joseph Lieberman’s (I-CT) personality
http://www.govexec.com/story_page_pf.cfm?articleid=40459&printerfriendlyvers=1
