Loose cannons

Issue 

Another one?

"Give war a chance." — New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, on April 6, calling for the bombing of Serbia to be less "surgical".

Life imitates art

"BELGRADE — Yugoslavia's film academy announced Saturday that it awarded its top prize to Wag the Dog, a film about an American president who fabricates a war in Albania to distract attention from a sex scandal." — New York Times, April 18.

There's repression, for instance

"[It would be a] great mistake to think that all the Conservative Party had to offer were solutions based on the free market." — British Tory leader William Hague.

Until June 30

"I'm always willing to speak to Senator Harradine." — Treasurer Peter Costello, on Harradine's doubts about the GST.

Our despot

"Montenegro is simply a despotism that's on our side." — Oxford University Balkans expert Dr Mark Almond, on media descriptions of Montenegro as a "democracy".

Name a better time

"Why bother playing petty factional games in the current circumstances of a Liberal Party Titanic that is three kilometres under the iceberg?" — Phillip Smiles, Liberal former MLA.

Soul mates

"If [yuppies] have become persona non grata in the Liberal Party ... I would appreciate you forwarding their names to [ALP headquarters]." — NSW Labor Council secretary Michael Costa in a letter to the NSW Liberals, after a Liberal member of Pittwater Council called Costa a "rampant capitalist yuppie" in a dispute over a Labor Council-owned property.

Running out of his own?

"The most pressing foreign policy problem we face is to identify the circumstances in which we should get actively involved in other people's conflicts." — British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

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