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Lingua publica

The good and the bad...presented with permission from The Patriot E-Journal

web posted May 28, 2012

"Who killed the 20-30 million Soviet citizens in the Gulag Archipelago -- big government or big business? ... Who deliberately caused 75 million Chinese to starve to death -- big government or big business? ... Would there have been a Holocaust without the huge Nazi state? Whatever bad big corporations have done is dwarfed by the monstrous crimes ... committed by big governments." --radio talk-show host Dennis Prager

"In a typical year, up to 50 million Americans change jobs, often happily. They get hired away, promoted, etc. This process partly explains why America's capitalism has been so much more dynamic than Europe's. In the social market, once you have a job, you cling to it because you may never get another. European governments make it much easier to cling to that job by punishing businesses that fire people. The unhappy byproduct of such 'compassion' is that businesses are also far more reluctant to hire people because each new hire is a potential long-term liability. Yes, Romney created jobs while he was creating value and wealth at Bain; he also destroyed jobs. Both are necessary in a dynamic market that improves the prospects for most Americans through economic growth. Some suffer from the process. But I would argue more people suffer under the social market." --columnist Jonah Goldberg

"Now that Romney is the nominee, it's perfectly understandable -- and rational -- that conservatives would want to get behind him to defeat the far worse Obama. ... However, there's a difference between supporting somebody for pragmatic reasons and deluding oneself into believing that he's somebody he isn't. It's one thing to vote for Romney, but it's another thing to let people convince you that you have to refrain from criticizing him when he does violence to conservative principles, because of the idea that it will help Obama. Conservatives shouldn't confuse being the leader of the Republican Party with being the head of the conservative movement." --columnist Philip Klein

"The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy them, and only in the short run. The current outbreaks of riots in Europe show what happens when the truth catches up with both the politicians and the people in the long run. Among the biggest lies of the welfare states on both sides of the Atlantic is the notion that the government can supply the people with things they want but cannot afford. Since the government gets its resources from the people, if the people as a whole cannot afford something, neither can the government." --economist Thomas Sowell

"If your main argument for how to grow the economy is 'I knew how to make a lot of money for investors', then you're missing what this job is about. That doesn't mean you weren't good at private equity. But that's not what my job is as president. ... This is not a distraction. This is what this campaign's going to be about: Is what is a strategy for us to move this country forward in a way where everybody can succeed?" --Barack Obama renewing attacks on Mitt Romney for his tenure at Bain Capital

"This is not an attack on free enterprise. ... There's something about raping companies and leaving them in debt and setting up Swiss bank accounts and corporate businesses in the Grand Caymans -- I have a real serious problem with that." --Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC)

"Obviously, Chicago residents who had difficulties getting home or getting to work or what have you, you know, that's -- what can I tell you? That's part of the price of being a world city. But this [NATO summit] was a great showcase. And if it makes those folks feel any better, despite being 15 minutes away from my house, nobody would let me go home. I was thinking I would be able to sleep in my own bed tonight. They said I would cause even worse traffic so I ended up staying at a hotel, which contributes to the Chicago economy." --Barack Obama

"Imagine where we'd be if the Tea Party hadn't taken control of the House of Representatives. ... They have one overwhelming goal: prevent President Obama from a second term, with no -- apparently no care of the consequences to the economy." --Joe Biden

"We all know we have to reduce the deficit. We have to do it in a balanced way. The speaker wants to go over the edge. We have cut over a trillion dollars in the Budget Control Act -- since the Budget Control Act of last year. There has to be more reductions, but we have to have revenue and we have to have growth." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi

"I trust that [John Roberts] will be a Chief Justice for all of us and that he has a strong institutional sense of the proper role of the judicial branch. The conservative activism of recent years has not been good for the Court. Given the ideological challenge to the Affordable Care Act and the extensive, supportive precedent, it would be extraordinary for the Supreme Court not to defer to Congress in this matter that so clearly affects interstate commerce." --Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT), seeking to intimidate the Supreme Court in its ObamaCare ruling

"I have a beautiful home and you pay me a lot of money." --Joe Biden

"[R]omney's known as a job destroyer, not a creator. ... I think the idea that you bring in Bain -- which is what happened in the '80s -- they fire a lot of people and that's how they get prosperity for the rich. And that is a more resonant theme, I think, than anything that Romney's come up with." --CNBC's Jim Cramer

"Well, look, it's a free country and I think [opinion news] has its place. It's not my kind of journalism, it's not what I've dedicated myself to.... When I was in the anchor chair and a field reporter before that, my goal was to be an honest broker of information." --ousted CBS anchor Dan "Fake but Accurate" Rather

"[Obama's] learned a lot. And, you know, his heart's always been in the right place, and I believe his head is now in the right place. And you certainly -- of course, I can't do endorsements, right? It's a Times' rule. So you have no idea who I prefer in this election. But he certainly is talking sense about the economy, and Mitt Romney is talking utter nonsense. ... [T]he Republican platform is, let's put that doctrine that has just caused collapse in Europe -- let's put that doctrine into effect right here in America." --New York Times columnist Paul Krugman

"Is GOP Trying to Sabotage Economy to Hurt Obama?" --AP Headline

"[S]o now Osama Bin Laden finally is gunned down by Barack Obama, displaying great courage and great intelligence. What more do you want to lead your country than that kind of courage and that kind of intelligence? ... It makes me angry that we can't give this president anything. ... What more do we want this man to do for us, honest to God?" --late-night comedian David Letterman

"These laws [banning abortions after 20 weeks] put providers in a position where they have to turn away patients who have great need. I also think they create this impression that abortion providers are callous and allow people to conflate murder and abortion. People feel morally justified to say 'this is wrong' because they're led to think it's close to murder. I think that jeopardizes us, by conflating abortion with an issue that would cause moral outrage." --obstetrician Willie Parker

"This November's election will determine whether we get to keep moving forward, or if we're forced to go back to policies that ask people like my middle-class family in Ohio to carry the burden -- while people like me, who don't need tax breaks, get extra help." --actress Sarah Jessica Parker in an email promoting her fundraiser for Obama

"Obama has not been vetted -- this drove me crazy this week. Apparently he just skated in 2008 just because he was running for president, and that does not draw a lot [of] media scrutiny, especially when you have the first black one. Is there any truth to this, that Obama has not been vetted?" --HBO's Bill Maher

"Robert Downey Jr. got a fifty million dollar payout for The Avengers Friday. Like President Obama, he has evolved. Early in his career he was a liberal, after Iron Man he became a moderate, and as soon as his check for the Avengers cleared, he came out for states' rights and the flat tax." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"On the first day of trading, Facebook shares rose less than expected. We were promised that Facebook would take off like a rocket. Apparently it's a North Korean rocket." --comedian Jay Leno

"A biography of President Obama used by his literary agent for years says Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii. When reached for comment, the administration explained that the president's birthplace is 'evolving.' It's weird, Obama said he was born in Hawaii, his literary agent says he was born in Kenya, and yet the liberal media still claim he was born in a manger." --NewsBusted's Jodi Miller

"Obama's budget went down in flames in the Senate 99-0. I just wanted to congratulate the President on uniting us all in a spirit of bipartisanship." --Fred Thompson

"I don't know how [Republicans have] been bamboozling folks into thinking that they are the responsible, fiscally disciplined party. They run up these wild debts and then when we take over we've gotta clean it up." --Barack Obama

"Since I've been president, federal spending has risen at the lowest pace in nearly 60 years." --Barack Obama

web posted May 21, 2012

"Call [Obama] what you want, but don't tell me he isn't an extreme leftist by American standards. He might be a moderate in Europe, but not here. If not for strong conservative voices opposing his radical agenda, he would have gone much further: larger and more stimuli, much greater deficits and debt, even higher percentages of people on the welfare rolls and not paying income taxes, an even more lawless Justice Department, a single-payer health care system, the consummation of the war on conventional energy and further wasteful green energy experiments, a more progressive income tax code, a possible value-added tax, more liberal activist judges, greater unilateral disarmament, further relaxation of border control, more government control over business -- and more. Thank God for conservative talkers and other voices on the right who aren't deterred from doing what is right for fear of being called extremists themselves." --columnist David Limbaugh

"Last week the Washington Post ran a story attempting to portray presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney as a homophobic bully. Despite every effort to contain it, the story imploded, as factual inaccuracies came to light. Furthermore, the victim's own sisters (he died of liver cancer in 2004) claimed to have no knowledge of incident, with one of them telling ABC News, 'If he were still alive today, he would be furious.' Yet as is often the case with highly publicized news stories, other mainstream media outlets attempted to keep the thematic aspect of the piece alive, irrespective of the facts. ... Why is it necessary to portray Mitt Romney as a bully? So Barack Obama, the real bully in this presidential election contest, doesn't look as bad by comparison." --columnist Arnold Ahlert

"There are only 11 primaries left and all but one -- Utah, which was a lock for [Mitt] Romney from the start -- will be held within the next 22 days. Why didn't [Ron] Paul hang in there and play out the string? I assume it's because two of those 11 are Kentucky and Texas, the latter Paul's home state and the former [his son] Rand's. [Rick] Santorum decided to quit before Pennsylvania to spare himself the bad press of a loss on his home field; Paul is taking a more middle-ground approach, trying to minimize the blow to Rand by declaring that he won't contest those races but refusing to formally suspend so that his supporters still have reason to go to the polls and get him some delegates." --blogger Allahpundit

"I would like to make a rule that nobody ever again be tried for a hate crime. A crime is a crime, and whether the victim is a black, a Hispanic or a homosexual, should not make the punishment any more severe than if the victim is a WASP. One can safely assume that every crime is hateful to the victim. People who favor concentrating on 'hate' rather than 'crime' are the same noodle-heads who are unaware that 'social justice' is an oxymoron. Justice doesn't call for adjectives. Once they're added on, it ceases to be justice, which is why Lady Justice is always pictured blindfolded and why Martin Luther King pleaded for a colorblind society." --columnist Burt Prelutsky

"It was a house of cards and it collapsed in the most destructive, worst crisis we've seen since since the Great Depression. And sometimes people forget the magnitude of it, you know, and you saw some of that in the video that was shown. Sometimes I forget." --Barack Obama

"We believe the free market is one of the greatest forces for progress in human history; that businesses are the engine of growth; that risk-takers and innovators should be rewarded." --Barack Obama, who believes nothing of the sort

"The question is not whether things will get better, they always do. The question is not whether we've got the solutions to our challenges, we have had them within our grasp for quite some time." --Barack Obama

"The announcement I made last week about my views on marriage equality... The basic idea -- I want everybody treated fairly in this country. We have never gone wrong when we expanded rights and responsibilities to everybody. That doesn't weaken families; that strengthens families. It's the right thing to do." --Barack Obama

"What made [the Constitution] special was that it made it possible for those who were left out to fight their way back in a constant forward movement. We look forward, not back." --Barack Obama

"When your name is Barack Obama it's always tight" --Barack Obama on his poll numbers

"You know, I'm proud of my Native American heritage. I'm proud of my family. It's now the case that people have gone over my college records, my law school records, every job I've ever had to see that I got my work. I got my jobs because I do my work. I work hard. I've been a good teacher." --Massachusetts Democrat senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren, who doesn't seem to be able to prove her supposed Cherokee heritage

"The racial struggle of America is more intrinsic to our entire national drama than other struggles for equality. And also, President Obama very markedly did not order any change in policy this past week with his comments. But I think they're similar in a president deciding that there is a change underway in public opinion and he's going to side in favor of a group that at that moment he views as being unfavored and even mistreated." --U.S. News & World Report editor and former Carter speechwriter James Fallows

"When I think about what some people, and I hear what some folks are saying about this issue, I wonder if in 10 or 20 years when those sound bites are played back to them if they're going to cringe and want to go and hide somewhere. ... I don't understand why people don't get that and why people keep ... injecting religion into an issue that has to do with rights." --CNN's Don Lemon advocating for marriage redefinition

"If Clinton Was 'Black,' Is Obama 'Gay'?" --CNN website headline

"[T]hey also have out this new Super PAC ad out about basically: Is Ann Romney under attack for being a mother? To me, it's still kind of amazing that they're still milking this thing. You know? It can't only be me that kind of initially saw Ann Romney as maybe a sympathetic or neutral figure but who is increasingly seeing her as someone who is kind of insufferable because of the way she's milking this thing. ... In a lot ways, the column [written by Ann Romney] was totally anodyne, right? She's, you know, yes, motherhood is beautiful. I found that phrase, 'the crown of motherhood' really kind of creepy. Not just because of it's somewhat -- you know, it's kind of really authoritarian societies that give out like a Cross of Motherhood. They give out awards for big families. You know, Stalin did it, Hitler did it." --Newsweek and Daily Beast columnist Michelle Goldberg

"We are all going to have to contribute to this, and if middle class people's wages were going up again, and we had some growth to the economy, I don't think they would object to going back to tax rates [from] when I was president." --the first black president, Bill Clinton

"We have come so far, but we have so much more to do for our children. Are you in? I mean, are you ready to roll up your sleeves and work, and talk, and get people signed up, and call on the phone, and talk to the people who don't want to talk to you and convince the neighbor that doesn't understand?" --Michelle Obama

"His views on LGBT rights are crystal clear, and this administration has taken actions that are unparalleled to support those rights." --White House Press Secretary Jay Carney

"Congratulations, Mitt Romney! You're the presumed GOP nominee and all you had to do was threaten to let our employers take away our contraception coverage threaten to let our insurance companies charge us more, just because we're women and threaten to get rid of Planned Parenthood, a life-saving source of healthcare for million of women So this November, we're gonna remember how you threw women under the bus, just to get the nomination." --MoveOn.org advertisement

"President Obama stayed overnight in Beverly Hills Thursday where he was cheered by people for his gay marriage stand. He caught a break. Beverly Hills is a town where the only people who are opposed to gay marriage are gay people who are already married." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"I think I speak for most heterosexual males when I say I'm not homophobic but chick-o-centric. Let's keep it positive, okay? It's not that we dislike gays ... it's just that we really like girls." --columnist Doug Giles

"President Obama officially announced he is in favor of gay marriage. Of course, this is a monumental event. This is the first time Joe Biden said something Obama didn't have to apologize for. ... In fact, he changed his campaign slogan from 'forward' to fabulous." --comedian Jay Leno

"A new Obama ad calls Romney a 'vampire' for what his firm did to jobs. But vampires are very popular these days; maybe that's how Romney closed up the gender gap. If Romney is a vampire towards jobs, what's Obama? A zombie plague?" --humorist Frank J. Fleming

"HotAir.com's Ed Morrissey notes (via Rory Cooper of the Heritage Foundation) that Obama has inserted his name into the official White House website biography of every president from Coolidge to George W. Bush. Example: 'In a June 28, 1985 speech Reagan called for a fairer tax code, one where a multi-millionaire did not have a lower tax rate than his secretary. Today, President Obama is calling for the same with the Buffett Rule.' Obama is under the mistaken impression that America's symbol is the bald ego." --The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto

"Things really are starting to come back. There are signs of life and hope in the Heartland. Jobs are starting to come back." --Joe Biden, bragging on the Obama economic "recovery"

web posted May 14, 2012

"Higher taxes now, spending cuts later. That was the 'balanced approach' President Obama and the Democrats tried to force Republicans to accept last August. ... The exact same story has been playing out in Europe. ... Problem is, Europe has not been cutting spending. Mercatus Center Senior Fellow Veronique de Rugy has crunched the numbers and found that among some of Europe's worst economies (Spain, the United Kingdom, France, Greece, and Italy) government spending cuts have either been tiny or non-existent. ... France and the United Kingdom have yet to cut spending at all. ... Obama's plan for the United States is identical to the new Socialist government's plan for France: higher spending and taxes now, spending cuts later." --Washington Examiner's Conn Carroll

"Europe is tremendously wealthy and productive, but Europeans sabotaged themselves by embracing the foolish idea that they could have an economic union without a political union. They are also paying the price for failing to come to terms with actuarial realities; their populations are graying. Without reforms of pension and other benefits, they cannot sustain their standard of living. Rather than face their own corruption, the Greeks principally, but also other Europeans, are disintegrating into raging extremists blaming anyone and everyone else. That's the object lesson for us. Here, Barack Obama and the Democratic Party are promising Americans more of this fool's gold -- limitless government benefits with costs imposed on someone else ('the rich' or future generations). It's an engraved invitation to Athens." --columnist Mona Charen

"What is the history of the 'raise taxes and reduce spending' compromise that is so popular in elite circles today? It is this: We get the tax increases but not the spending cuts. After having already enacted major tax cuts in 1982, Ronald Reagan agreed to raise business and excise taxes in exchange for spending reductions. Taxes went up, but so did spending by $450 billion. President George H.W. Bush cut a similar deal with Democrats. Again, we got the taxes but the spending cuts never materialized. There is simply no proven way to guarantee that the spending-cuts part of the compromise will be implemented. Is it any wonder that Republicans are taking a hard line of this?" --former senator Fred Thompson

"Conservatives should refuse to cede the compassion argument to the left. There is more to caring than pumping an ever-increasing share of taxpayer dollars into programs that do virtually nothing to lift people out of poverty. And there is certainly nothing compassionate about standing idly on the sidelines while these programs bankrupt the federal government." --blogger Morgen Richmond

"We believe the free market is one of the greatest forces for progress in human history; that businesses are the engine of growth; that risk-takers and innovators should be rewarded." --Barack Obama

Don't let go of failure: "We have come too far to abandon the change we fought for these past few years. We have to move forward, to the future we imagined in 2008, where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same rules. ... We measure prosperity not just by our total GDP; not just by how many billionaires we produce, but how well the typical family is doing -- whether they can go as far as their dreams and hard work will take them. ... So if you're willing to stick with me, if you're willing to fight with me, and press on with me; if you're willing to work even harder in this election than you did in the last election, I guarantee you -- we will move this country forward." --Barack Obama

Spending = compassion: "When you're talking about cutting meals on wheels, when you're talking about cutting food stamps which actually is money that goes directly to small businesses markets in communities versus giving tax subsidies to farming corporations, these are the type of cuts that the Republicans are talking about." --Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA)

"Look, I am vice president of the United States of America. The president sets the policy. I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men marrying women are entitled to the same exact rights -- all the civil rights, all the civil liberties. And quite frankly I don't see much of a distinction beyond that." --Joe Biden

"Now we know that Mitt Romney loves to paint the president as a European-style socialist, which is incredible. ... [Romney] supports Paul Ryan's budget. He wants to go cut, cut, cut. It's not [the] president -- it's him! He's the European socialist!" --MSNBC's Martin Bashir

"President Obama has done more for gay and lesbian Americans than any president in history. ... Yet he faces endless criticism from LGBT activists for not embracing the word marriage publicly. ... What's troubling about the criticism he has endured is that it indicates that President Obama is being held to a different, tougher standard than other leaders. ... Lesson number one, can start with asking themselves the question: Are you holding the president to a tougher standard because deep down inside you don't really trust him? And if the answer to that question is yes, perhaps the next question you should ask yourself is why?" --MSNBC contributor Keli Goff

"[A]s a true conservative, what could be more conservative than a committed relationship between a man and a man or a woman and a woman who want to embrace the sanctity of marriage? I simply do not understand the position by true conservatives who say that they don't believe in committed relationships." --NBC's Andrea Mitchell

"[Friday's] jobs report was a mixed bag of course. 115,000 jobs were added to payrolls in April. The unemployment rate did drop to 8.1 percent, the lowest rate since President Obama took office." --MSNBC's Chris Matthews ("As the ... Bureau of Labor Statistics clearly shows, the unemployment rate was 7.3 percent when Obama was sworn in." --Newsbusters' Noel Sheppard)

"We now have history's first draft of the story of this Congress. There is so much political fog right now that it is hard to get a clear view of the reason for the dysfunction on Capitol Hill. But three new books take a step back to get a clear look at the fray, and all three conclude that no-holds-barred, right-wing politics is to be blamed." --Fox News' Juan Williams

"I certainly think President Obama has sent a very clear message of respect and appreciation of all religions, and in particular of Islam." --Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

"In the 21st Century, the reality is that there are environmental threats which constitute threats to our national security. For example, the area of climate change has a dramatic impact on national security: rising sea levels, to severe droughts, to the melting of the polar caps, to more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief." --Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta

"If 'business as usual' conditions continue, economic contractions the size of the Great Recession or even bigger will be needed to reduce atmospheric levels of CO2. ... One solution that has promise is a carbon tax levied on any activity producing CO2 in order to create incentives to reduce emissions. The money would be returned to the population on a per capita basis so the tax would not mean any extra fiscal burden." --researcher Jose Tapia Granados calling for another economic slowdown to combat global warming

"[O]ur calculations suggest these dinosaurs may have produced more methane than all the modern sources, natural and human, put together." --co-researcher David Wilkinson on his latest breakthrough study with St. Andrews University professor Graeme Ruxton that dinosaurs created their own fatal climate change

"I think [Obama's] done a good job. He's done other things that maybe he should have been a little stronger about, people will complain. But it's not easy to be president of the United States. ... And I think he's doing -- I give him credit, and I hope he does -- I know he'll do better in the next four years, when he won't have to worry whether he's going to be elected or not." --actor Robert De Niro

"[S]elf-absorption is part of the occupational hazard of politics, and it's also part of the job description of being president. All that said, try to imagine Dwight Eisenhower talking about D-Day saying, 'I did this. I decided this. I did this and then I did that.' It's inconceivable. That comparison between Obama and Eisenhower illustrated the problem for the president. If you struck from Barack Obama's vocabulary the first-person singular pronoun, he would fall silent, which would be a mercy to us and a service to him, actually." --political analyst George Will

"Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said, 'climate change has a dramatic impact on national security.' When you slash the military's budget to pay for failed solar companies -- yeah, it does." --Fred Thompson

"President Obama admitted that a former girlfriend that he wrote about in his autobiography was made up and not a real person. So Obama had an imaginary girlfriend. Big deal! He had an imaginary economic plan. It's all the same." --comedian Jay Leno

"The Obama campaign created a fictitious woman named 'Julia' to illustrate government services it will offer women throughout their lives. For instance, if Julia starts a worthless solar company, she'll still get billions of taxpayer dollars." --NewsBusted's Jodi Miller

web posted May 7, 2012

"Imagine if President Nixon had decided to base his 1972 re-election campaign on the boast that he landed on the moon. His predecessors tried and failed for eight years. It wasn't an easy decision -- what if something went wrong? But that's why you hire a president, to make those gutsy calls. Which path would George McGovern have taken? That's analogous to President Obama's effort to campaign on the killing of Osama bin Laden. His absurd braggadocio is turning one of the few successes to occur under his leadership into a political liability." --Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto

"[W]hen Obama swore to defend the Constitution, and therefore the nation, he did it in the dimension where the rest of us exist, where the economy appears to be headed toward its annual spring stall and an endless series of massive budget deficits threatens to unleash a financial crisis at any time. While big issues simmer untended, our leader is focused like a laser beam on trivia that benefit him politically but do the country little or no good. ... This president was sold as someone who could rise above Washington's partisanship. Instead, he's supervising it." --White House Dossier's Keith Koffler

"[T]he attempt to wean entire societies of 'junkies,' i.e. those addicted to government largesse, off the government teat has created havoc. Furthermore, and this is where it gets to the nub, societies structured to live off government, the ones where government is the major employer ... are now faced with the economic 'ripple effect' that the laying off government employees produces. ... [S]timulus is nothing more than an increase in the very same government debt -- and government dependency -- that brought Europe to its knees in the first place. ... The responsible solution to this whole mess is the one that few people are willing to embrace: weaning people off government dependency as quickly as possible, and educating them as to why it is necessary." --columnist Arnold Ahlert

"You have to hand it to President Obama and his cabal of re-election strategists; they are masters of illusion. Their newly released Web video and its accompanying campaign slogan, 'Forward,' are science fiction-level fantastical. We're all familiar with Obama's penchant for deflecting responsibility and blaming his policy failures on George W. Bush, but after more than three years in office for Obama, it has gone from childish mischief to juvenile delinquency. This is a question for Guinness: Has any other president run for re-election against the record of his retired predecessor?" --columnist David Limbaugh

"Election Day 2012 will not be a presidential election. It will be a plebiscite. ... They will be participating in a plebiscite on the definition of America. ... The usual description of presidential elections -- 'the most important in our lifetime' -- is true this time. In fact, it may be the most important election since the Civil War, and possibly since America's founding. ... [Barack Obama] described the left's aim perfectly: to fundamentally transform America. It seeks to replace Liberty, In God We Trust, and E Pluribus Unum. That is what 'fundamentally transform' means. In fact, those words are proof that American values and leftist values are fundamentally opposed to one another. ... For these reasons, this election is not just a choice between a Democrat and a Republican. It is between Americanism and leftism. ... The left's desire to transform America is the biggest issue. Barack Obama is to be opposed because he is a man of the left." --radio talk-show host Dennis Prager

"[O]ver the last three years, the tide has turned [in Afghanistan]. We broke the Taliban's momentum. We've built strong Afghan security forces. We devastated al-Qa'ida's leadership, taking out over 20 of their top 30 leaders. And one year ago, from a base here in Afghanistan, our troops launched the operation that killed Osama bin Laden. The goal that I set -- to defeat al-Qa'ida, and deny it a chance to rebuild -- is within reach." --Barack Obama, the peacenik arm-chair warrior, claiming credit for goals set and foundations laid years before he was even a junior senator from Illinois -- goals that he campaigned originally to undermine and abandon

"And we've got me in the house." --Barack Obama, giving a shout-out to himself (see the nauseating video here)

"This contraception fight in particular was illuminating. This is a [Republican] party that says it prides itself on being rabidly anti-regulation. These are folks who claim to believe in freedom from government interference and meddling. But it doesn't seem to bother them when it comes to women's health." --Barack Obama

"I just barely can hammer a nail into the wall. My wife is not impressed with my skills when it comes to fixing up the house. Fortunately right now I'm in a rental, so I don't end up having to do a lot of work." --Barack Obama addressing union officials

"I ran for president because we had lost our way since Bill Clinton was done being president. ... [S]o if you're willing to join us and finish what we started in 2008, and continue what Bill Clinton was doing when he was president of the United States, and if you are willing to share that vision of what America can be, I guarantee you we won't just win this election, we're going to make sure that we remind this world of ours just why it is America is the greatest nation on Earth." --Barack Obama

"We're headed in the right direction. Unemployment continues to drop and those people who are unemployed, they're not gonna be voting for the party who wants to cut their benefits, cut access to food stamps, cut job training. The idea that Republicans are trying to help those who are unemployed is nonsense and I think that on this Election Day, those who have a job can credit the administration for stabilizing our economy and those who don't know that this administration is trying to put them to work." --Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA)

"[T]here's enormous human damage being done to this economy and it's all unnecessary. We have the knowledge. We have the tools. If we could get our politicians to move and do the right thing, we could be out of this very fast. The right thing is, actually, to spend more." --New York Times' Paul Krugman

"Mitt Romney's wrong when he thinks that we are engaging in what he calls the politics of envy. No one who happens to be poor wants what Mr. Romney has." --PBS's Tavis Smiley

"We know that Ann Romney has herself had some suffering in the form of Multiple Sclerosis (MS), she's also suffered with breast cancer. Do you think that [Romney's] intentionally using her to close the gender gap?" --MSNBC's Martin Bashir

"[J]ust about every new poll of public sentiment shows that confidence in the news media has hit a new low. ... But have the media really become more biased? Or is this a case of perception trumping reality? In fact, there's little to suggest that over the past few decades news reporting has become more favorable to one party." --The Washington Post's Paul Farhi

"All that scrutiny of the press may suggest an inescapable conclusion: There's something wrong with the news media. All the time. Journalists have gotten that message, too. Reporters have heard the criticism from the right so often that they lean over backwards to be fair to them." --The Nation's Eric Alterman

"Two years ago, we made history together by finally passing health reform. And because we passed this law, insurance companies will now have to cover basic preventive care -- things like prenatal care, mammograms, contraception -- at no extra cost." --Michelle Obama

"[The Republican] message is, 'You didn't clean up our mess fast enough.' Okay? As I said, we've had 11 consecutive months of positive economic growth, 25 consecutive months of positive private sector job growth. The Republicans, again, they want to return to the policies not of strengthening the middle class but instead of giving tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. They want to make health care and contraceptive decisions. They want to put those decisions in the hands of the boss that women work for." --Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs

"My family, we lived in a little bitty apartment on the South Side of Chicago over my aunt's house [and] my mom still lives in that house to this day." --Michelle Obama (Cute, except for one minor detail: Her mother, Marian Robinson, moved to the White House in March 2009 where she still lives to this day.)

"We are going the right direction under President Obama's leadership." --Bill Clinton

"The vision that we have for this country is the right vision, we all know that. And it's one that we can work towards together." --Michelle Obama

"[T]here is a false view that has become the conventional wisdom that we have too much partisanship in the country. That is not true. Frankly, the Democrats could probably be a bit more partisan in terms of sticking up for the stuff we actually believe in and not compromising so quickly. It's a problem of right-wing extremism and the Republican party being pulled so far to the right, and they have to deny science and they have to, you know, make up facts, and now it's become business as usual." --Van Jones

web posted April 30, 2012

"If Obama can cobble together disaffected young people, greens, women, minorities and the poor ... then massive debt and deficits, high unemployment, sluggish growth and spiraling gas prices won't decide the election. Lots of presidential candidates have run by identifying such enemies of the people, rather than debating the general state of the nation -- sometimes successfully, sometimes not. But the problem with an us/them strategy is not just winning an election, but trying to put back together what was torn asunder." --historian Victor Davis Hanson

"The Pew Hispanic Center has a new report out finding that the growth in the Mexican immigrant population has stopped, and the total number has even declined a little. This was caused by the number of new arrivals (mostly illegal) in 2005-2010 dropping by half to about 1.4 million, while the number going home doubled, to just under 1.4 million. ... [M]ost Mexicans who've left have done so on their own. What's more, Pew estimates that those returnees took 100,000 American-born children with them. In other words, attrition works. But if illegal immigrants are going home on their own, why do we need an amnesty?" --columnist Mark Krikorian

"The 2012 Pulitzer Prizes looked less like an excellence-in-media competition and more like an exercise in leftist self-affirmation. No prize established this more strongly than the coveted National Reporting prize going to ... The Huffington Post. ... The prizewinner, 'senior military correspondent' David Wood, has been at The Huffington Post for about a year. He won the Pulitzer by reporting on the struggles of veterans and their families. It's a worthy subject but also something pretty much every other media outlet has tried to cover over the last 10 years. There's nothing here worthy of a National Reporting prize. What the Pulitzer Prize judges are doing is exactly what the Obama White House did right from the start -- mainstreaming the Huffington Post. ... A Pulitzer seals the liberal deal." --columnist L. Brent Bozell

"I want clean energy to happen here in the United States. I want advanced batteries made here in the Unites States. I want electric cars made here in the United States. I want solar and wind power made here in the United States. We've been subsidizing oil companies with taxpayer giveaways for about a hundred years now. It's time to double down on clean energy that's never been more promising." --Barack Obama

"I gotta say to the women out there, whether you're a Republican, a Democrat or Independent, if you're a self-respecting human being, please vote for President Obama. And to the men who care about women, do the same thing." --Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA)

"[Republicans] continue to go down a path of asking middle income and lower income people to pay the price for the fiscal irresponsibility that was pursued in the last decade under the Bush administration, where much was spent and little was paid for." --House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD)

"The fact is this president has been so respectful of the Republicans in Congress. He has given them every opportunity for the executive and the legislative branch to work together, to have a solution that has bi-partisan support. He's been criticized by some for taking the time that it takes to find out that they're never going to give him a break, which is a compromise." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

"The Republicans have fully embraced extremism and they have brought in two years almost no jobs legislation to this floor and not worked with the president on any legislation to help make sure that we can move the economy forward because their number one goal is political and that's to defeat Barack Obama." --DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) (Republicans brought at least 15 "jobs" bills to the floor.)

"When you decide to support a candidate named Barack Hussein Obama, you know the odds are not necessarily in your favor. ... We knew it wasn't going to be easy. We knew the changes that we believed in wouldn't necessarily come quickly, but we understood that if we were determined that we could overcome any obstacle, that we could beat any challenge. And in just three years, because of what you did in 2008, we've begun to see what change looks like. We've begun to see it." --Barack Obama

"[Obama] now has a specific record of governing. A record that, I contend, because of his race will be held to a much higher standard than it would have been for a white incumbent." --MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry

"[T]he lowest price in the last six years, the nadir of gas prices at the pump, was the day of this president's inauguration in 2009. There has to be some connection between that being the least busy political moment of a president's career, where you're not going to -- you're not gonna hurt them, you're not gonna harm him that way, and the price of gas. There has to be an almost deliberate or at least a side-effect quality to that. There must be." --repeatedly ousted anchorman Keith Olbermann

"Many critics view The Times as constitutionally unable to address the election in an unbiased fashion. Like a lot of America, it basked a bit in the warm glow of Mr. Obama's election in 2008." --New York Times public editor Arthur Brisbane

"A number of America's TV meteorologists and other broadcast weatherpersons have been accused by peer-reviewed climate scientists either of being greatly uninformed about the science of the basics of manmade global warming, or, at the very least, of shying away from any mention of it during broadcasts for fear of losing ratings by driving their audience away with worrisome news. Instead, complain these scientists, U.S. TV weather journalists, feeling the need to provide some explanation for the unusual weather, often escape into a simplistic nearest-cause answer, blaming the extreme weather on 'the jet stream,' while avoiding the science that connects the jet stream's behavior to manmade global warming ... as well as ignoring other larger global patterns that also project such extremes." --ABC's Bill Blakemore

"Does America need an Arab Spring?" --New York Times foreign-policy columnist Thomas Friedman

"[W]e do know that the country has been swinging, you know, in terms of the polarization on the Right to incredible kind of fundamentalist situation where you have people like -- we talked about Rick Santorum -- where, where actually they are virtually contradicting all the constitutional principles in their rhetoric. And so you say, 'Well look, okay, you can believe that, but you cannot equate that with this Constitution. That's not an interpretation issue. It means that you did not read the Constitution, and indeed you are anti-American.' I am very pro-American in the sense of a constitutional America, and I'm very pro-American in terms of a diverse America and one where we do reach out and understand that to be too mono-cultural is to limit ourselves and create the insecurity that we're currently facing." --actor Sean Penn

"[The Tea Party] understood that people were sitting on a white hot stove out there, and if Democrats weren't gonna point at the financial elites, they were gonna point at the government elites. Somebody gotta get blamed [sic], and part of the problem with the president was by being so bipartisan and trying to not -- trying to be one country about everything, he let his opponents set him up." --Occupy Wall Street spokesperson Van Jones

"A lot of Republicans in Congress want to cooperate [on immigration reform], know better, but they are in the thralls of this reign of terror from the far right that has dragged this party to the right." --Obama senior adviser David Axelrod apparently comparing the Tea Party to French Reign of Terror figure Maximilien Robespierre

"There's a difference between free speech and a campaign to deny the climate science with the goal of undermining international action on climate change. However, there's also responsibility that goes with freedom of speech -- which is based around honesty and transparency. Freedom of speech does not apply to misinformation and propaganda." --Ec0-group Greenpeace.org, seeking to deny free speech to "deniers"

"'Mother Earth' as a common cultural expression is supposed to mean the way in which the biosphere is the giver and sustainer of life. But, calling the earth by a female metaphor reveals how much the earth is subject to actions and policies that exploit rather than protect. There's a kind of 'war on women' that applies to the planet too." --leftists 'theologian' Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite

"We know who the active denialists are -- not the people who buy the lies, mind you, but the people who create the lies. Let's start keeping track of them now, and when the famines come, let's make them pay. Let's let their houses burn. Let's swap their safe land for submerged islands. Let's force them to bear the cost of rising food prices. They broke the climate." --climate alarmist Steve Zwick

"CBS News reports that Greg Stokes, one of the agents fired in the Colombia prostitution scandal, 'was recently listed on the internet as the supervisor of the Canine Training Section of the Secret Service.' We hear they once asked Stokes to double as the president's food taster, but he had to turn down the assignment because it would be a conflict of interest." --Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto

"President Obama reacted angrily when asked about the Secret Service hotel scandal on Thursday. It presents him with a political problem. When his own bodyguards are refusing to pay their hookers how can he accuse the Republicans of waging war on women?" --comedian Argus Hamilton

"President Obama is gearing up for his presidential campaign. He's creating a new series of ads. The first ad boasts 'just last week my Secret Service created jobs for 11 Colombian women.'" --comedian Conan O'Brien

"During a campaign speech in Ohio, President Obama said, 'I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth.' So to be fair, he wants to take your silverware and spread it around." --Fred Thompson

"In order to pay for [extending student loan interest subsidies, House Republicans] are going to make an assault on women's health, make another assault on women's health, continue our assault on women's health and pay for this with prevention initiatives that are in effect right now for childhood immunization; for screening for breast cancer, for cervical cancer; and for initiatives to reduce birth defects -- a large part of what the Center for Disease Control does in terms of prevention. ... [I]t may be a slush fund to [them], but it's survival to women." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

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