Pun Salad

It's Eloquence Day here at Pun Salad, in which we take note of interwebbers who make their points using powerful and effective language.

• First up is Roger L. Simon, who ruminates on the character of one Sandy Berger.
  What manner of moral reprobate could act they way he did after some three thousand people were murdered by Islamist terrorists. No doubt the inner Sandy has a raft of rationalizations, varied ways of justifying his criminal behavior to himself whether he was defending his own actions or Clinton's or both. (It would be interesting to know, wouldn't it?) Perhaps Berger is even sophisticated enough (though I suspect not) to reference EM Forster's famous dictum: "If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country." But the problem is - Berger wasn't just betraying his country, he was betraying real, living human beings, past and potential victims of terrorism. As we learned on 9-11, it doesn't matter what country they come from. It is a betrayal of humanity as much as it is a betrayal of our country (though of course it is that.)

  Roger looks at this with a novelist's eye for character.

  (But with respect to Roger's reference to the Pajamas Media coverage, please also see Dartblog's somewhat irritated note.)

• Speaking as one prosecutor to another, Patterico "thanks" Durham (NC) County District Attorney Mike Nifong for his intrepid handling of the Duke rape whatever-it-is-now case. No way to excerpt this gem, just go "read the whole thing."

• And written on a napkin, something that speaks to the whole "whither libertarianism" issue that's been going around the past few days:
  Liberty will not descend to a people; a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.

  The napkin attributes this to "Tilton", but a little Asking Of The Google finds that it almost certainly originates with Charles Caleb Colton. Others attach it to Ben Franklin, Emma Goldman [it is on her gravestone], or Abraham Crowley [?]. The quote appears engraved in the archway of an impressive colonial-era government structure in Delhi, India; this Time magazine article from 1942 mentions it portentiously; this tourist guide finds it "rather patronising"; a commenter at Kevin Drum's blog deems it "somewhat nauseating."

  Nevertheless, I like it. (Original napkin link via Club for Growth.)