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Lingua publica

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

web posted July 23, 2012

"[I]f you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own. ... If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. ... If you've got a business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." --Barack Obama ("It would be interesting to see [Obama] stand before an audience of, say, plant workers who lost their jobs because of EPA regs, and remind them 'you didn't get to the unemployment line on your own -- somebody gave you some help!'" --blogger Doug Powers)

"The Obama theory of entrepreneurship is that behind every successful businessman, there is a successful government. Everyone is helpless without the state, the great protector, builder, and innovator. Everything is ultimately a collective enterprise. Individual initiative is only an ingredient in the more important work when 'we do things together.'" --National Review's Rich Lowry

"[Obama's] apologists will say his remarks were taken out of context, but I'm afraid that's not the case. Though no one can deny Obama's assertion that all successful people have benefited from others -- teachers and other mentors -- the thrust of his remarks was directed at crediting government with having an indispensable role in the success of businesses. ... He referred wistfully to the Clinton years as a period of unbridled economic growth -- and he attributed that growth to tax increases on the 'wealthy.' He said that during those years, 'we created a lot of millionaires.' We? Created? In other words, government created a lot of millionaires; it wasn't their ingenuity, and it certainly wasn't their 'hard work'.... This is Obama's orientation. This is his mindset." --columnist David Limbaugh

"Under Obama's formulation ... private success is nonexistent. There is only the glory of the state, as expressed through collective action. The ditch digger and social worker share equally in the success of the small-business owner and the tycoon. Therefore, they deserve an equal, or at least much larger, share of the fruits of the entrepreneurs' labor. This is the thinking of a man who views businesses as entities to be milked for the good of the collective." --New Hampshire Union Leader

"['The buck stops with you'] is an interesting line of attack for Obama to be making. Romney is claiming he should not be held accountable for decisions made by Bain Capital from 1999 through 2002 because he was on leave and did not make any of the decisions in question. Sounds straight forward enough. But what about everything that has happened under Obama sine he was sworn into office? The murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and Fast and Furious. The Solyndra bankruptcy. The GSA Las Vegas spending scandal. Twenty-three million Americans either under or unemployed. 8.2 percent unemployment. Will Obama claim he's been on leave since 2009?" --Washing Examiner Senior Editorial Writer Conn Carroll

"When some people question why I would challenge [Mitt Romney's] Bain record, the point I've made there in the past is, if you're a head of a large private equity firm or hedge fund, your job is to make money. It's not to create jobs. It's not even to create a successful business -- it's to make sure that you're maximizing returns for your investor. Now, that's appropriate. That's part of the American way. That's part of the system. But that doesn't necessarily make you qualified to think about the economy as a whole, because as president, my job is to think about the workers. My job is to think about communities, where jobs have been outsourced." --Barack Obama, who shouldn't be bringing up economic qualifications

"It's less a tax or a penalty than it is a principle -- which is you can't be a freeloader on other folks when it comes to your health care, if you can afford it." --Obama

"By the way, if you've got health insurance, you're not getting hit by a tax. The only thing that's happening to you is that you now have more security because insurance companies can't drop you when you get sick." --Obama, who has long insisted that the mandate is not a tax

"In my life, what I have found -- sometimes I do boneheaded things, I make mistakes. What I find is when I don't, when I try something that doesn't work, then I don't try it again." --Obama, who continues to repeat the same bad plan

"Washington feels as broken as it did four years ago." --Obama

"It's funny -- when I ran [for president], everybody said, 'Well, he can give a good speech but can he actually manage the job?' And in my first two years, I think the notion was, 'Well, he's been juggling and managing a lot of stuff, but where's the story that tells us where he's going?' And I think that was a legitimate criticism." --Obama on his one fault being failure to tell a story

"[I]f we can't get a good deal [to raise taxes on the top two income brackets] -- a balanced deal that calls on the wealthy to pay their fair share -- then I will absolutely continue this debate into 2013, rather than lock in a long-term deal this year that throws middle-class families under the bus." --Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) (So, raising taxes on everyone will protect middle-class families?)

"I'm actually sad that we're spending so much time talking about taxes because one thing that's not going to get us some kind of a growth boom is a tax cut. I mean, it hasn't worked in the last three or four years. It really hasn't worked since 2001 when you had much broader across-the-board tax cuts." --TIME's economics and business assistant managing editor Rana Foroohar

"There is one great strength here that Romney does have, and I think it's been overlooked. And that is, the Republican position has been, we want to increase revenue without raising the rates. So that means closing tax loopholes or tax expenditures. There's nobody who knows more about tax loopholes and tax expenditures than Mitt Romney." --PBS's Mark Shields

"Well, there might be a variety of reasons why [Obama's] been less than successful at telling his story as he put it. ... It ... might be that the Republicans have put the White House a bit on the defensive. You'll remember when he made the call on Osama bin Laden and announced that we had gotten bin Laden in a rather low-key kind of way, the Republicans immediately jumped on him and accused him of taking a victory lap, and doing unseemly things, and politicizing all that sort of thing. It might also be that the media is not giving him enough credit for telling the story that he has told." --MSNBC's Ron Reagan Jr.

"Everything [Obama's] done is clean as a whistle. He's never not only broken any law, he's never done anything wrong. He's the perfect father, the perfect husband, the perfect American. And all they do is trash the guy." --MSNBC's Chris Matthews

"[The stimulus] is widely recognized to have broken the back of the recession." --White House Press Secretary Jay Carney

"A grid that was resilient for the weather of [the past] is not resilient enough to withstand violent storms that climate change and global warming in our atmosphere are causing today. Because of our reliance on the exponential increase in fossil fuels, we have the added variable of much more violent weather than what our parents and grandparents faced." --Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley

"[Republicans] have had a policy of obstruction from the day the president arrived. When the president is re-elected, it will be a rejection of the politics of obstruction. There's this reign of terror going on in the Republican Party." --Senior Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod

"What [Romney's] saying is, 'well, I left [Bain Capital] before they actually moved these jobs to China and to Mexico, and I'm not gonna be held responsible for it.' You know, Harry Truman had a plaque on his desk saying, 'The buck stops here.' If Mitt Romney became president he would have a placard on his desk saying the buck stops there." --David Axelrod

"I mean, hope doesn't get actualized in three and a half years. If that were the case, we'd be out of luck as a country." --Michelle Obama

"I guess it goes back to Robin Hood. People that are fighting for the middle class and for the Have-Nots. It's something that we see even playing out in the presidential race. And if you don't vote for Barack Obama, you're insane. Cause without him, I think the middle class will completely disappear. And you look at Romney -- and I'm sure he's a nice guy, but I think he's like The Thing -- he only imitates human behavior. He's not actually human himself." --actor Mark Hamill

"When Obama gets heckled, the heckler is a racist. When Romney gets heckled, HE'S a racist. Keep it straight, cracker." --Daily Caller's Jim Treacher

The Obama White House deserves credit for its consistency, if not its performance, on jobs. Since November 2009 it has told Americans not to read too much into a monthly jobs report a staggering 30 times. ... Fair enough then, don't read too much into one monthly jobs report. But how about 41 straight months?" --Pajamas Media's Bryan Preston

"President Obama canceled his vacation to Martha's Vineyard, saying he must focus on his re-election campaign. It calls for a special counsel. If the president suffers an injury that's preventing him from playing golf, the country has a right to know about it." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"During a recent speech, Vice President Joe Biden said 'I believe this election will come down to character, conviction and vision.' I agree. Biden is a 'character,' Holder just got 'convicted' by the House, and none of them have the 'vision' to see what's about to happen to them in November." --Fred Thompson

"Obama wants you to know that if you're rich and successful, it's not because you're smart and hard working, it's because government helped you out. So why isn't government helping me be rich? What is it with Obama and his lazy stupid government making so few people rich these days? I pay my taxes; make me rich, Obama. I'm waiting. Oh! I got something from Obama in the mail! I bet it's about making me rich... No. It's just food stamps." --humorist Frank J. Fleming

"If you talk to economists, they will tell you there are two things that are the most stimulative that you can do -- one's unemployment insurance, the other's food stamps, okay?" --House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD)

web posted July 16, 2012

"Remember in August 2009, when Obama supported extending the Bush tax cuts because, as he then put it, 'The last thing we want to do is raise taxes during a recession'? Well, here we are with 8.2% unemployment (we haven't been below 8% for 3-1/2 years), meager 1.9% average GDP growth with a very real threat of recession on the horizon, trillion-dollar deficits extending as far as the eye can see, and this is a good time to raise taxes? Doubly confusing is the fact that Obama and his Democrat allies are on the record as saying that the Bush tax cuts did not work. Yet he wants to extend them for the middle class, but only for a year. Please tell us, Mr. President, why extend tax cuts you don't believe worked?" --Investor's Business Daily

"This continues to be the longest streak -- 41 months -- of unemployment of 8% or higher since the Great Depression. And recall that back in 2009, Team Obama predicted that if Congress passed its $800 billion stimulus plan, the unemployment rate would be around 5.6% today. ... And there are few signs the rest of the year will be any better. And given a) how the eurocrisis is AGAIN flaring up, and b) China continues to slow, it sure seems like 2% growth and 8% unemployment is a best-case scenario with plenty of downside risk -- for the economy and the Obama campaign." --American Enterprise Institute columnist James Pethokoukis

"Barack Obama believes that politics is a knife fight, and the only rule is that he must win. His conduct reflects the unholy mix of a messiah complex with the muscle of The Chicago Way. His goal, he tells us, is to 'transform' America, not fix it. This culture clash explains a presidential campaign operating in parallel universes. Romney is making a broad pitch to the nation as a whole, assuming jobs, the debt, deficit and a strong military are what people care about because they should. Obama knows that's no longer true for a big slice of the country. He gives lip service to those issues, but they concern him only to the extent they could be his undoing." --columnist Michael Goodwin

"Both employers and consumers are convinced that these are uncertain times, when money is better hoarded and protected rather than risked, given the uncertainty of administration policy and the certainty that profit-making is looked upon as suspicious. And just as many believe there will be no let up until the end of 2012, so, too, they trust that after that date, the long-term outlook -- energy-wise, tax-wise, technology-wise -- is pretty good, suggesting that they should weather the current storm to be poised for its passing soon. We are now at an impasse: The nation is shrugging, and will the president try to coax it to start lifting again, or in petulance, add more weight?" --historian Victor Davis Hanson

"[T]hese tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans are also the tax cuts that are least likely to promote growth." --Barack Obama

"Instead of creating more jobs, we had the slowest job growth in half a century, and instead of widespread prosperity, the typical family saw its income fall." --Barack Obama blaming the Bush tax cuts for the economy

"So we don't need more top-down economics. We've tried that theory. We've seen what happens. We can't afford to go back to it." --Barack Obama

"So I'm not proposing anything radical. I just believe that anybody making over $250,000 a year should go back to the income tax rates we were paying under Bill Clinton. Back when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs, the biggest budget surplus in history, and plenty of millionaires to boot. ... At the same time, most people agree that we should not raise taxes on middle-class families or small businesses -- not when so many folks are just trying to get by. " --Barack Obama

"Millionaires are just as patriotic as poor people. The very wealthy are just as noble and patriotic as the middle class. But nothing has been asked of them in this horrendous recession. And it's time we just ask." --Joe Biden

"We need to have a tax code where secretaries aren't paying a lower tax rate than their bosses." --Barack Obama getting his own argument about the Buffet Rule backwards

"I suspect that most people ... would acknowledge that I've tried real hard, and we just haven't gotten the kind of willingness on the part of Republicans to engage on a whole range of issues that I wish had happened. Part of what I think needs to happen in this election is the voters once again have to send a message, 'We want common-sense ideas. We don't folks who are just sayin' no to everything.'" --Barack Obama explaining that it's all Republicans fault that he hasn't reached across the aisle

"What's important if you are running for president is that the American people know who you are and what you've done and that you're an open book." --Barack Obama calling on Mitt Romney to release various documents

"Republicans have changed the law so you get arrested if you do vote. ... No more compassionate conservatism, no more health care for everyone. ... They're saying exactly what they believe, and they mean it." --Joe Biden on Voter ID laws

"All right, Congress is back to work ... after a Fourth of July recess. And in just two days, House Republicans plan to call a vote to repeal the president's health care overhaul law. ... I'm wondering, should Congress people be spending more time helping constituents comply with the law rather than continuing all of this uncertainty about it?" --CNN's Christine Romans

"Many Americans say they're unhappy about the health care law, but the the popularity of the law is something of a red herring. Sometimes, government must lead. Sometimes, government must demand people accept change that they're not yet ready for. Those are the moments when leaders with vision can change society and create the crescendos of history. In freeing the slaves, desegregating schools, enacting Title IX, and legalizing gay marriage, government led America into a new world much of the country wasn't ready for -- but in time, we adjusted. And this too shall pass." --MSNBC's Tour??

"It speaks to a perception. And I don't know how fair it is, I'm not a business analyst. I don't know if Mr. Romney did good things at Bain Capital, but I do know that this is the wrong time to be running as a businessman. It has become something of a dirty word." --political commentator Keith Olbermann

"Since the Affordable Care Act was passed, national health spending is rising at a slower rate, health insurance premiums are rising at a slower rate, small-business coverage is holding steady and Medicare is on a stronger financial footing." --Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius making claims that are demonstrably not true

"I don't think the car manufacturers would be manufacturing the cars they are manufacturing today as hybrids, if it weren't for what the president did in signing the executive order and what Lisa (Jackson, EPA Administrator) and I have done over the last three and half years about developing C.A.F.E. (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards for automobiles and light trucks that will get 54.4 miles per gallon by 2025." --Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood (Lexus produced it's first hybrid SUV in 2004 -- when Obama was still a state senator from Illinois.)

"The Chinese are more successful [in building infrastructure] because in their country, only three people make the decision. ... In a country where only three people make the decision, they can decide where to put their rail line, get the money, and do it. We don't do it that way in America." --Ray LaHood

"Barack had a mama, and she was white -- very white American, Kansas, middle America. There was no argument about who he is or what he is. America's first black president hasn't arisen yet. He's not America's first black president -- he's America's first mixed-race president." --actor Morgan Freeman suggesting that the movement to call Obama "black" is a conspiracy to defeat him. (Memo to Morgan: That didn't work in '08!)

"When Barack Obama got the keys to the bus it was trapped in the ditch with three flat tires. We've changed the tires, we've pulled the bus out of the ditch, and we're starting up the road to strengthening the middle class. There's a different theory. Mitt Romney wants to take that bus -- probably a bus made in Switzerland or Bermuda ??? and he wants to turn that bus around, he wants to pick up some millionaires and billionaires and shower them with cash." --Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs (Mr. Gibbs apparently forgot that Obama's campaign bus was manufactured in Canada.)

"Romney raised $100 million in June, and there is talk that Obama could be the first incumbent president to be outspent. I don't know why that's a big deal, though, because he gets lots of free coverage. Like with these job numbers that just came out, I hear his name mentioned constantly." --humorist Frank J. Fleming

"So, extreme heat broke 3,000 records. Out of how many? 3,000, 300k, or 3 million? How many records weren't broken -- is a good question." --meteorologist Dr. Ryan Maue

"The Supreme Court kept intact the individual penalties written into the health care law. It teaches freeloaders a lesson. People who refuse to buy health insurance could go to prison for five years, where they'll receive free health care and complimentary meals." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"The Democratic Convention is $27 million in debt. They had to cancel the kick-off event at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. A speedway is the perfect place for the Democratic Convention. You go around in circles, turn left every few seconds, and you end up right where you started." --comedian Jay Leno

web posted July 2, 2012

"Arizona and other states are fighting the Obama doctrine of cherry-picking which legal requirements the chief executive will enforce. This was the basis of the policy announced June 15 that the government would give large numbers of illegal immigrants de-facto amnesty by suspending deportation proceedings against them and allowing them to work in the country legally. The Department of Homeland Security added fuel to the fire Monday by announcing it was suspending agreements with Arizona police over enforcement of federal immigration laws. These and other actions call into question President Obama's commitment to his sworn executive duty under Article 2, Section 3, Clause 4 of the Constitution to 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed.' ... The framers of the Constitution didn't envision a president preventing states from upholding the law. ... When the federal government abrogates its constitutional duty to protect the states, the states must protect themselves. A statute on the books is useless when the occupant of the White House calculates that it's in his political interest not to enforce it." --The Washington Times

"The whole federal conflict with Arizona has come about not because Arizona wanted to make its own laws contradicting federal law, but because it wanted to enforce federal laws itself. What does it say about the Obama administration's priorities that it effectively scraps its sworn pledge to uphold the law, usurps the legislative function by ignoring federal laws, punishes those who comply and puts its own re-election first?" --Investor's Business Daily

"What Barack Obama wishes to accomplish by way of immigration outreach, chiefly to Hispanics, is his re-election. ... This is all a shame, if not a scandal. When politics, meaning the quest for votes, comes to dominate an urgent question, we are assured nothing substantive, or perhaps even useful, is going to be done. Every move becomes outreach: the act of begging. It is pretty much how we live these days. The political parties, as in Europe prior to the financial debacle, are focused on giving things, not on taking them away. When you take something away -- a well-paying government job, the right to strike against or bargain collectively with the government -- you offend, meaning you drive away votes. When, by contrast, you hand out favors, you sometimes could listen all day without hearing all the expressions of gratitude and fealty. If your profession is the harvesting of votes, which outcome do you prefer?" --columnist William Murchison

"You know, it's fashionable right now for people to be cynical. We go in cycles like this and right now a lot of people are saying, 'Oh, America is doing terribly' and 'What are we going to do?'" --Barack Obama

"We created a whole lot of millionaires to boot. Businesses did just fine. And you know there are plenty of patriotic, successful Americans all across the country -- I meet them every day -- who'd be willing to make this contribution again because they understand there is such a thing as the common good. They understand that we're in this thing together." --Barack Obama

"I will be the first president in modern history to be outspent in his re-election campaign, if things continue as they have so far." --Barack Obama

"One of the things that I resent about these guys is they talk about us middle class guys and I don't live a middle class life anymore; I live in a beautiful home, they fly me around, you know what I mean?" --Joe Biden

"Make sure of two things: Be careful -- microphones are always hot, and understand that in Washington, DC, a gaffe is when you tell the truth. So, be careful." --Joe Biden

"Don't forget, [Republicans are] going after [Attorney General] Eric Holder because he is supporting measures to overturn these voter suppression initiatives in the states. This is no accident, it is no coincidence." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) claiming that efforts of charging Holder with contempt of Congress has nothing to do with "Fast and Furious"

"It's clear that [charging AG Eric Holder with contempt of Congress] is nothing more than a political witch hunt to distract from the fact that Republicans in Congress have no interest in focusing on what we need to focus on, which is jobs and the economy." --Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL)

"Were the health-care law to be eviscerated, those who battled so hard on its behalf might draw at least bittersweet comfort from what could be called the Joni Mitchell Rule, named after the folk singer who instructed us that 'you don't know what you've got till it's gone.'" --Washington Post opinion writer E.J. Dionne Jr.

"Does anyone wonder like I do what this Supreme Court -- the one personified by Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas -- would have done in the landmark decisions in the post-World War II era? ... The fact is we have the most conservative court since the early 1930s, and maybe more conservative than that. These justices, led by Scalia, believe in original intent. They wanna judge cases the way the Founding Fathers would. Well, the Founding Fathers -- need I remind us all -- wrote slavery into the Constitution. It took a Civil War and the 13th Amendment to get it out." --MSNBC's Chris Matthews

"President Obama, his administration, has been remarkably scandal free. Really. And so [Republicans have] been trying with Solyndra, with Fast and Furious to get something going." --MSNBC political commentator Krystal Ball

"I think it's a tough time to be a white man in America where the minorities are really taking over, to be quite honest." --Washington Post editor Cathy Areu

"Is it a good goal for everyone in the world to have access to air-conditioning -- like clean water or the Internet? Or is it an unsustainable luxury, which air-conditioned societies should be giving up or rationing?" --The New York Times

"Bottom line is, after a level of cooperation that I think demonstrates this administration's absolute interest in finding out the truth about the Fast and Furious operation, and why that flawed tactic was used, its origins and its implementation, its efforts to work with Congress to provide it the information that was required under legitimate oversight needs, an assertion was made -- because this has become a political fishing expedition. And it is absolute evidence -- and I would refer you to the statements by congressional House -- rather, Republican congressional leaders from the beginning of the year, where they made clear that one of their chief priorities for this year was to use their investigative power in the House to score political points in this election year. I think knowing that tells you everything about the motivations here." --White House Press Secretary Jay Carney

"When arguing against paying their fair share of taxes, wealthy regressives claim 'it's my money.' But it's their nation, too. And unless they pay their share, America can't meet the basic needs of our people. True patriotism means paying for America." --Clinton administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich

"Where taxes are implemented on sugar-sweetened beverages, using revenue for anti-obesity programs and educational campaigns explaining the adverse effects of excessive consumption of these beverages will help to reduce the consumption of these caloric beverages and improve public health." --American Medical Association (AMA) board member Alexander Ding, M.D.

"And I think ... we're going to be in a lot of trouble if we don't re-elect [Obama] because people on the other side of the fence scare me." --actor Morgan Freeman

"Instead of making the world safer, America's violation of international human rights abets our enemies and alienates our friends." --Jimmy Carter denouncing the use of drone strikes on terrorists

"President Obama was ripped by conservatives for his decree that overturned the defeat of his Dream Act in Congress. The act allows illegal alien children to stay in the U.S. but placed a ten percent tax on tanning salons. Leave it to Democrats to subsidize brown people who want to be Americans and tax Americans who want to be brown people." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"Scholars have all their precedent saying why Obamacare should be upheld; there's just the stupid text of the Constitution still in the way." --humorist Frank J. Fleming

"White House Press Secretary Jay Carney described the congressional hearings on Fast & Furious as 'a political fishing expedition.' And from what we've heard so far ... we're gonna need a bigger boat." --Fred Thompson

"The Congressional Black Causes says it is racist to refer to President Obama as 'cool.' Well, it is a good thing no one's calling him that anymore." --NewsBusted's Jodi Miller

"Gas prices are expected to drop to around $3 a gallon by this fall. The price drop is the result of a complicated system. It's called the election." --comedian Jay Leno

"It should be pretty clear by now that I didn't do this because it was good politics. I did it because it was good for the country." --Barack Obama, whose only aim is the "fundamental transformation" of the United States

"I knew that when [Ted Kennedy] left us he would go to heaven and help pass the bill. Now I know he was busily at work until this decision came down, inspiring one way or another. And now he can rest in peace." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on the SCOTUS decision on Obamacare

web posted June 25, 2012

"President Obama's claim that he can refuse to deport 800,000 aliens here in the country illegally illustrates the unprecedented stretching of the Constitution and the rule of law. ... [W]hat we have here is a president who is refusing to carry out federal law simply because he disagrees with Congress's policy choices. That is an exercise of executive power that even the most stalwart defenders of an energetic executive -- not to mention the Framers -- cannot support." --attorney John Yoo

"Make no mistake: this is classic sleight-of-hand, designed to get the country roiled up about something -- make that anything -- that will obscure the monumental failure best labeled Obamanomics. It is the proverbial boob bait for the masses, delivered by an administration that desperately needs Americans distracted away from the reality of a double-dip recession, record numbers of people on food stamps, millions of un- and under-employed workers, and no plan whatsoever for dealing with our impending fiscal Armageddon, other than blaming Republicans for their failures." --columnist Arnold Ahlert

"Since Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party has given its presidential nomination four times to the Bush family. Other times, to Bob Dole, John McCain and Mitt Romney. Where's the extremist in that lot?" --columnist George Will

"Remember when Obama declared that Americans had to pull together, because what united us was stronger than what divided us? Yeah, not so much. President Obama's re-election campaign has been an exercise in fragmentation. Where the 2008 campaign was built thematically around the notion that a polarized electorate was bad for the country and that election of a third-way, multi-racial president could symbolically overcome our divisions once and for all, the 2012 campaign is built on precisely the opposite notion: Americans united in opposition to Obama's agenda must be divided again. ... Obama now realizes that he can't win by uniting Americans. He can only win by dividing us." --columnist Ben Shapiro

"When President Barack Obama announced his 2012 launch of 'African Americans for Obama', the silence was deafening. Should the same standards be applied to Obama as would be applied to Romney? The answer turns out to be no, because Obama is not held to the same standards as Romney. ... Black people ought to be offended by the idea that we are held accountable to lower standards of conduct and achievement. White people ought to be ashamed for permitting and fostering racial double standards that have effects that are in some ways worse than the cruel racism of yesteryear." --economist Walter E. Williams

"2012 may be miserable -- but if it is, it won't be because corporations spend on politics. ... The very first amendment that the Founders chose to add to the Constitution couldn't be more clear: 'Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech ... .' Yet most people support laws against political speech -- when they don't like the speakers. ... But political (and religious) speech is exactly what the Founders were eager to protect when they wrote the First Amendment. ... Don't progressives realize that corporations (and unions, which also had their speech rights protected) are associations of individuals -- individuals who have rights? ... It is shameful that leftists let their hatred of corporations lead them to throw free speech under the bus. There is a smarter way to get corporate money out of politics: Shrink the state. If government has fewer favors to sell, citizens will spend less money trying to win them." --columnist John Stossel

"This is not amnesty. This is not immunity. This is not a path to citizenship; it's not a permanent fix. This is a temporary stopgap measure that lets us focus on resources wisely while giving a degree of relief and hope to talented, driven, patriotic young people. It is the right thing to do." --Barack Obama

"Is this is the right thing to do for the American people? I didn't ask for an argument, I'm answering your question. It is the right thing to do for the American people." --Barack Obama

"I love listening to these guys give us lectures about debt and deficits. I inherited a trillion-dollar deficit. ... This notion that somehow we caused the deficits is just wrong. It's just not true. ... If they start trying to give you a bunch of facts and figures suggesting that it's true, what they're not telling you is they baked all this stuff into the cake with those tax cuts and a prescription drug plan that they didn't pay for and the wars." --Barack Obama

"I think we are ironclad on the constitutionality of [ObamaCare]. We believe in the Constitution. We believe in judicial review. ... But I think it's also important for the public to know that obstruction is the agenda of the Republican party. If they win, that will be their agenda. They don't believe in a government role, clean air, clean water. You name it." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

"The argument that the jury is still out on climate change is a false and bogus argument. The jury is not out. In fact, the jury is in, the effects are obvious, they surround us every day, and we need to take action." --Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)

"Mitt Romney is running the campaign he wants to run, which is just a referendum. 'You're not happy about the economy, this guy's been there for four years, vote him out of office. You need an alternative.' What the president's got to do is say, 'Hey, don't forget about George W. Bush. Things got really, really bad under him.'" --NBC's David Gregory (As if Obama hasn't already loaded blame on Bush.)

"[Y]ou vote for [Romney] and [Romney] wouldn't even let [Latinos] in his apartment. You know, I think that there's a real feeling that, you know, there's a, that it's not about immigration or immigration reform or even border security, that there's a racial component, that there's a feeling that there's this creepy black or brown invasion from the South." --radio show host Geraldo Rivera on why Latinos will vote for Obama

"It's very, very difficult to place race outside of this context [referring to The Daily Caller's Neil Munro interrupting Obama at a White House press conference]. ... We haven't seen anything like this before. ... But you also have the promotions of the Tea Party, where they're using racially-tinged imagery, and racially-tinged sort of statements to get their point across." --Politico reporter Joe Williams

"[T]his is the first African-American president, and we've never had a white president been told by the opposing party to shut up in the middle of a major address to Congress. We've never had a president heckled so disrespectfully. We've never had this otherness afforded to any other president. And I think the right wing is going to have some explaining to do, because to me, it seems patently obvious." --MSNBC contributor Julian Epstein, who was apparently asleep during every Republican presidency

"Many on the political right believe this president ought not to be there -- they oppose him not for his polices [sic] and political view but for who he is, an African American! These people and perhaps even certain news organizations (certainly the right wing talkers like Limbaugh) encourage disrespect for this president." --former ABC White House correspondent Sam Donaldson

"Our attorneys -- the homeland security attorneys -- are absolutely confident [Obama's immigration announcement] is within our authority, to use some discretion." --Obama senior adviser David Plouffe

"We owe something to the government to grow up in this great country. I'm tired of hearing people in the private sector talk like they don't owe the government anything. We do. This is a great country because we all pay into it. It's about time we all pay into it. ... If we paid the same amount of taxes we paid when Bill Clinton was president, I would be a happy guy, and the budget would be closer to balanced. You cannot give away money, whether you give it to rich or poor people. That's what George Bush did -- excuse me, trillions of dollars. You can't do that." --Howard Dean

"[Rap] put Barack Obama in the presidency. You know, if it wasn't for rap, white people wouldn't have been so open to vote for somebody like Barack Obama,. ... You know, there's only 10 percent of black people in the United States. White people voted for Barack." --rapper Ice-T

"Republicans are behaving just like Hitler did." --"Waiting to Exhale" author Terry McMillan

"At a fundraiser in Maryland, President Obama said you could put Romney's 'campaign on a tweet and have some characters to spare.' As opposed to Obama's campaign, where there's no character left at all." --Fred Thompson

"Commerce Secretary John Bryson smashed his car into a Buick as the Buick was waiting for a train to go by. He got out and apologized, then smashed into the Buick again. President Obama called a press briefing Monday and said the Buick is doing just fine." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"The Obama administration will now stop the deportation of hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens and will also issue them work permits. This allows them to focus on what's really important: illegally voting for Obama in November." --NewsBusted's Jodi Miller

"President Obama is going to let certain illegal immigrants stay in this country. But there is an age requirement. You have to be old enough to vote by November." --comedian Jay Leno

"Contempt of Congress? Contempt of Congress? To frivolously use that really important vehicle to undermine the person who's assigned to stop the voter suppression in our country -- I'm telling you, this is connected. It is no accident. It is a decision, and it is uh, uh, as clear as can be. It's not only to monopolize [Attorney General Eric Holder's] time, it's to undermine his name, to undermine his name, to undermine his name as he goes forward to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi

"I could have arrested Karl Rove on any given day. I'm not kidding. ... If we had spotted him in the Capitol, we could have arrested him. ... [T]here were some specific [grounds] for his being in contempt of Congress. But we didn't." --Nancy Pelosi

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