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Lingua publica

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

web posted September 24, 2012

"As Election Day draws nearer, the Obama campaign and its surrogates in the Fourth Estate have infested the political arena with an army of tactical and rhetorical rodentia. ... This week, it's a 'secret Romney video' shot undercover at a closed-door dinner with Florida donors in May. ... 'All right, there are 47 percent who are with [Obama], who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. ... And they will vote for this president no matter what.' ... Gasp! He said he's against freeloaders. Oh, the inhumanity. ... Let the parsers and panicky pundits chase their tails and hurl their nuts. This election is about America's makers versus America's takers. Romney should never, ever apologize for making that clear." --columnist Michelle Malkin

"Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (R., Wis.) has a post on the Hill's Congress Blog highlighting a bizarre new regulation from the EPA requiring some gas stations to sell at least four gallons of gasoline at a time. It affects those that pump both E10 and E15 ... through the same hose. ... It's a historic moment for the EPA, though, as they've never actually forced people to buy anything before. 'The EPA's first-ever mandated purchase requirement appears to have been conceived outside the normal regulatory process,' Sensenbrenner wrote, 'making this unprecedented government overreach even more offensive.' ... It's just another great example of how ugly things get when unelected bureaucrats involve themselves in the most minute decisions of individuals, like how much gas they want to buy and whether or not they want to have corn in it. Thanks, Obama!" --National Review's Betsy Woodruff

"When you realize that the President of the United States has the lives of 300 million people in his hands, he has the future of western civilization in his hands, he has the freedom that has been inherited over the centuries in his hands, and he's already starting to dismantle that, I really don't think it's a question of any individual, whoever is in the White House, being cut any slack. The last thing you need to do is cut slack to people who have power over 300 million people." --economist Thomas Sowell

"I've worked with Republicans in Congress to already cut $1 trillion in spending. And we're willing to do more. I don't want a government that's wasting money. It's gotta be mean, it's gotta be lean, it's gotta make sure that it's focused on the people that are working hard but need a ladder up." --Barack Obama

"[L]ook, I want to work with [Republicans] to reduce the deficit. I've said if the Republicans need more love, if they want me to walk the dog or wash their car, I'm happy to do it. You know, I genuinely believe that most Americans, Democrats or Republicans, they just want us to solve problems. So I'm ready and willing to work." --Barack Obama

"[W]e don't have to worry about [the debt] short term." --Barack Obama

"You can talk a good game, but I like to walk the walk, not just talk the talk." --Barack Obama

"I have made it clear that the United States has a profound respect for people of all faiths. We stand for religious freedom." --Barack Obama, whose government is being sued by multiple Catholic and other Christian groups for trampling First Amendment religious protects via ObamaCare

"The American people should know this: In a changing world, my commitment to protecting religious liberty is and always will be unwavering. As America's religious diversity grows, we have the chance to reaffirm the pluralism that has defined us as a nation. A pluralism that is expansive enough to protect the rights of all to speak their minds and to follow their conscience." --Barack Obama

"[Romney] thinks the middle class is $200,000 to $250,000. Whoa! Whoa! Don't you all wish you were in that middle class? ... He's totally out of touch with the reality of what ordinary Americans deal with every day. He does not get it. He does not understand." --Joe Biden, purposely changing what Romney said about middle class earning as much as $200,000 to $250,000

"The message we have to send to the Muslim world is we expect you to work with us to keep our people safe. We expect their full cooperation because that's the only way the world works." --Barack Obama

"There are some very, very deep and troubling things going on ... in the Middle East that have very little to do with what a president does or doesn't do. ... You don't have American policymakers being able to shape the way Muslims think about the world, about modernity, about the United States. So -- so to blame the president for ... an attack on ... these embassies, I think, is a bit much." --The Atlantic's Jeff Goldberg

"Let's be realistic. The extremists in the Middle East who are causing all of this trouble are extremists. And no Republican, no Democratic president is going to be able to control them." --The Washington Post's Bob Woodward

"[T]he Arab Spring has been a much greater, much broader troubling issue that arguably not any American president could handle very effectively." --NBC's Andrea Mitchell

"The tragedy in Benghazi that cost Ambassador Stevens his life, unfortunately, has been overshadowed by the desperate reach [of] Mitt Romney to secure a political advantage." --MSNBC's Chris Matthews

"[R]omney got in the way of the media looking at the president, going ... what happened here? How did this happen? Now, those questions are going to be asked in the coming weeks. But they weren't asked in the first 24 hours because Romney was holding this horrific, irresponsible, press conference." --MSNBC's Joe Scarborough

"[W]e've coexisted with first the Soviet Union and now Russia for a long, long time, and they have nuclear weapons. What is the difference in Iran having a nuclear weapon and Russia having a nuclear weapon or China or Pakistan?" --CBS's Bob Schieffer

"We learned that the truth matters, so you don't take shortcuts, you don't game the system, you don't play by your own set of rules. And we learned that no one gets where they are on their own. ... Barack has been fighting for us. He has been struggling with us. And together, slowly but surely, we have been pulling ourselves out of the hole that we started in. For three-and-a-half years, we've been moving forward and making progress, and we're beginning to see that change we all can believe in. That I know for sure." --Michelle Obama

"The economy was losing 800,000 jobs every month, and a lot folks wondered whether we were headed for another great depression. Now this is what Barack faced on day one as president. That's what awaited him, but instead of pointing fingers and placing blame, Barack got to work." --Michelle Obama

"First of all, let's be clear about what transpired [last] week. In Cairo, in Benghazi, in many other parts of the region, [what happened] was a direct result of a heinous and offensive video that was widely disseminated, that the U.S. government had nothing to do with, which we have made clear is reprehensible and disgusting. ... The government of Libya and the people on the streets saying how pained they are by this is much more a reflection of the sentiment toward the United States than a small handful of heavily armed mobsters." --U.S. ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice

"To us, to me personally, this video is disgusting and reprehensible. It appears to have a deeply cynical purpose -- to denigrate a great religion and to provoke rage." --Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

"[The Tea Party] want to reduce the number of people who have casted votes. They don't want racial minorities to vote at all. And ... voter suppression is focused on racial minorities, on students, on people who are new to the voting process, on people who have just been sworn in as new citizens of this nation, and it's unfortunate because it goes counter to what this democracy is all about." --former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown

"For the press, politics doesn't stop at the water's edge. It stops wherever is most convenient for Obama's reelection campaign." --columnist Rich Lowry

"Right after declining to meet with Israel's Netanyahu, President Obama announced he'll be making an appearance on Letterman. I'm guessing that night's list will be 'Top 10 Worst Ways to Treat an Ally.'" --Fred Thompson

"President Obama spoke at the White House to denounce the attacks on U.S. embassies. The president was resolute. He added a statement saying it's unacceptable to insult anyone's religion unless it refuses to pay for free birth control for its employees." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"Well, according to the Labor Department, unemployment fell from 8.3 to 8.1 percent last month. But that was because ... 368,000 Americans gave up looking for work. And today, President Obama said that's a step in the right direction, and he is encouraging more Americans to give up looking for work so the numbers will come down a little bit." --comedian Jay Leno

"The Obama economic agenda failed not because it was stopped, but because it was passed." --Paul Ryan

"The most important lesson I've learned is you can't change Washington from the inside. You can only change it from the outside." --Barack Obama in an interview with Univision

"He said he can't change Washington from the inside. He can only change it from outside. Well, we're going to give him that chance in November. He's going outside. ... His slogan was 'Yes we can.' His slogan now is 'No I can't.'" -- Mitt Romney

web posted September 17, 2012

"Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis walks, talks and barks like a rootsy Occupy Wall Street activist. ... When she's not urging other teachers to d itch the classroom or organizing traffic blockades to impede everyone else in Chicago from getting to and from their jobs, Lewis spends her time trashing public charter schools and business leaders trying to reform our Soviet-style monopoly in education. The results speak for themselves: While CTU members earn an average of $74,000 a year and are now spurning 16 percent pay hikes, 71 percent of the third-largest school district's 8th-grade students can't attain the most basic level of science proficiency, and nearly 80 percent are not grade-level proficient in reading. ... It bears repeating often: The goals of the teachers union radicals are not academic excellence, professional development and fairness. The goals are student indoctrination, social upheaval and perpetual grievance-mongering in pursuit of bigger government and spending without restraint: 2, 4, 6, 8! One agenda: Agitate!" --columnist Michelle Malkin

"[Yesterday], the U.S. embas sy in Cairo was attacked, stormed, and the U.S. flag was torn down by a bunch of crazy Egyptians emboldened by the Arab Spring. Yet Barack Obama felt he needed to issue an apology. ... On the anniversary of the September 11 attacks. ... According to CNN, Obama's Administration issued a statement saying that it 'condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims -- as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.' America is apologizing for those who would 'hurt the religious feelings of Muslims?' Did Buddhists kill 3,000 Americans on September 11? How about Hindus? Or, Zoroastrians? Or any of the other 21 major faiths that exist on the Earth? ... Even though everyone believes this election is going to be about the economy, a few more boneheaded days like yesterday might well make Obama's inept handling of foreign policy a major issue. If I have hurt your feelings ... I'm so sorry." --columnist Rich Galen

"The problem with Medicare is not just that its current formula is unsustainable, or that Obama diverted a staggering amount of projected future spending on it into yet another bank-breaking entitlement. It is that the national government is innately incapable of running an entitlement program. ... As constituted, our government offered two visions of 'providing for the general welfare.' First is the Madisonian principle that Congress's capacity to tax and spend is strictly limited to its enumerated powers -- which do not include running social-welfare programs. The second is a Hamiltonian gloss, giving Congress additional latitude, provided that its schemes benefit all Americans equally -- which would preclude welfare programs that take from A for the benefit of B. Once you abandon these moorings, once you accept a wealth-redistribution system in which government becomes the arbiter of 'social justice,' the ball game is over." --former DoJ attorney Andrew McCarthy

"We are absolutely better off than we were when I was sworn in and we had 800,000 jobs being lost in a month." --Barack Obama

"My plan would reduce our deficit without sticking it to the middle class. Independent analysis has shown that my plan would cut deficits by $4 trillion. And I've a lready worked with the Republicans in Congress to cut a trillion dollars' worth of spending, because those of us who care about what government can do to help people give them a ladder up." --Barack Obama

"Just yesterday my opponent called my position on fuel efficiency standards extreme. I don't know, it doesn't seem extreme to me to want to have more fuel efficient cars. Maybe the steam engine is more his speed." --Barack Obama

"What they're proposing, and this is a fact. I say to the press, 'Fact check me.' What they're proposing will actually cause the Medicare trust fund that pays for the benefits when you go to the hospital, the doctor, etc., to run out of money, a sufficient amount of money by 2016. That's when it would hit the wall." --Joe Biden

"Seniors would be kicked out of nursing homes. What are we going to do? A lot of those folks are moms and dads. They come from middle-class families. Even worse some have no families, nowhere to go. What's going to happen? They don't tell you that their plan would immediately cut benefits for 30 million seniors." --Joe Biden

"Could the 9/11 attack have been stopped, had the Bush team reacted with urgency to the warnings contained in all of those daily briefs? We can't ever know. And that may be the most agonizing reality of all." --New York Times columnist Kurt Eichenwald politicizing the 9/11 anniversary

"For 44 days last summer, Barack Obama was hostage to eve nts outside his control. The Republican Congress newly dominated by the Tea Party threatened for the first time in history to have America default on its debts. ... But is that the president's fault?" --ABC's Diane Sawyer

"Years from now we may look back ... and remember Bill Clinton's [DNC] speech as one of the greatest in convention history. No one, including President Obama himself, has made a better case for Obama than Bill Clinton did." --MSNBC's Chris Matthews

"Part of my job when I speak about politics is to speak up for black people and say things black people need said. This mission has rarely felt so necessary as it has when racial code words recently entered the Presidential election. .... Using certain words to invoke racialized fear and scare white working class voters is a long-established part of the Republican playbook." --MSNBC's Tour??

"What is riskier than living poor in America? Seriously! ... I am sick of the idea that being wealthy is risky. No. ... Being poor is what is risky. We have to create a safety net for poor people. And when we won't, because they happen to look different from us, it is the pervasive ugliness." -- MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry

"I've heard no less than Ambassador Michael Oren say this -- that what the Republicans are doing is dangerous for Israel." --DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz who accused conservatives of misquoting her -- except they didn't

"[Republicans] think lying is a virtue." --Obama's deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter

"I think we measure how Godly we are by Medicaid, by Medicare, by access to the lease of life of people who's backs are against the wall." --"Reverend" Jesse Jackson

"[Obama] cleaned up half the s--- in four years realistically. It ain't like you gave him a clean house. Y'all gave him a house with a TV that didn't work, the toilet was stuffed up; everything was wrong with the house." --rapper "Snoop Dogg"

"I have no experience with incest. We started thinking about that. ... I'm not saying this is an absolute but in a way, if you're not having kids -- who gives a d---? Love who you want. ... If it's your brother or sister it's super-weird, but if you look at it, you're not hurting anybody except every single person who freaks out because you're in love with one another." -- film director Nick Cassavetes on his upcoming incest-promotional movie, "Yellow"

"GOP ad shows Obama using exact same words in 2008 & 2012. So much recycling, 'presidential speechwriter' should count as a green job." --former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson

"Barack Obama walked onstage to thank Bill Clinton after his barn-burning speech Wednesday. As they walked off together, someone up front shouted how nice it was to have God back on the platform. They both spun around and said that it was nice to be back." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"Bill Clinton said that President Obama inherited a deeply damaged economy. And if he's re-elected he'll inherit an even more deeply damaged economy." --comedian Jay Leno

"Mr. Obama ... came to office saying, and apparently believing, that a more deferential America would be better respected around the world. He will finish his term having disproved his own argument. The real lesson of the last four years -- a lesson as much for Republican isolationists as for Democrats who want to lead from behind -- is the ancient one that weakness is provocative." --The Wall Street Journal

"Governor Romney seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later. [emphasis added] And as president, one of the things I've learned is you can't do that. ... [I]t's important for you to make sure that the statements that you make are backed up by the facts and that you've thought through the ramifications before you make them." --Barack Obama on Romney's statement re: the Cairo embassy

"In their fantasy world, all the complex global changes of the world since World War II have never happened. In their fantasy America, all problems have simple solutions -- simple and wrong. It's a make-believe world, a world of good guys and bad guys where some politicians shoot first and ask questions later." [emphasis added] --Jimmy Carter in 1980 -- probably the last politician Obama should be quoting right now

"No one, not me, not anybody else, no one could have completely healed that and built a whole new economy and brought us back to full employment in just four years. It has never been done in the history of the world. It cannot be done. The test is not whether you think everything is hunky-dory. If that were the test, the president would vote against himself. He says that everything's not hunky-dory." --Bill Clinton at campaign event for Barack Obama

web posted September 10, 2012

"As the Democratic Party gathers in Charlotte, North Carolina this week to re-nominate Barack Obama, the big question Republicans are asking Americans to answer this week is: Are you better off now than you were four years ago? There is almost no metric that would allow a segment of the population to answer, 'Yes.' ... The Republican National Committee has published a very inventive video showing examples of what Senator Obama was saying four years ago paralleled (eerily so) with his stump speech today. Mr. Obama's own remarks indicate we haven't made much progress. ... They will continue to try and prove to American voters that Obama might not have finished paying off the promises he made four years ago, but Mitt Romney is not qualified to be his replacement." --columnist Rich Galen

"The model [for Obama's campaign] is Jimmy Carter's 1980 failed reelection bid that had two themes -- as noted by Reagan in the debate -- namely, that all sorts of uncontrollable circumstances and other bad actors were responsible for his own dismal economic record, and that Reagan was scary and would be far worse." --historian Victor Davis Hanson

"It is poetic that as the Democrats unveil their 2012 platform, their 2008-12 legacy [reached] an important milestone: The official national debt [crossed] the $16 trillion mark. There are tens of trillions more in unfunded entitlement liabilities lurking off the official books, and the Democrats' 2012 platform contains not one serious proposal for addressing these potentially catastrophic obligations." --National Review

"Women for Mitt? You're nothing but cover for 'a party that does in fact think that women should not have voices.' That's from former secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who 'can't understand why any woman would want to vote for Mitt Romney.' In case you forget, this week will remind you: Women care about abortion-on-demand and mandated contraception (and abortion-drug) coverage. Jobs? Religious liberty? The human rights of the unborn? It's background noise to the party on stage this week." --columnist Kathryn Jean Lopez

"Just about this time in 2010, the Obama administration, in the person of Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner, proclaimed to the world that the economic recovery had begun. 'Welcome To The Recovery' was the title of Geithner's op-ed in the New York Times. 'Exports are booming,' Geithner boasted. 'Businesses have repaired their balance sheets and are now in a strong financial position to reinvest and grow.' Someone at one of the debates should ask how, after a short burst of reasonable growth in 2010, George W. Bush was able to reach out and crush the Obama economy." --columnist Mona Charen

"Obama never stops taking bows for keeping America's automotive industry in business. What he fails to mention is that by turning GM over to the UAW, he not only screwed the shareholders, he put 2,200 car dealerships out of business. Thanks to Obama's stimulus, GM is still hanging around, but the American taxpayer is out over $21 billion." --columnist Burt Prelutsky

"Republican voters, if you ask them about my particular policy positions, often agree with me. So there's a difference between Republicans in Washington and Republican and Republican-leaning voters around the country. I think that after this election, we'll be in a position to once again reach out to Republicans and say that the American people have rendered a judgment, and the positions we're taking are well within what used to be considered bipartisan centrist approaches." --Barack Obama

"I've often proposed ways to solve our problems that used to be embraced by Republicans. There's no better example than the health care bill, which was designed originally by the now Republican standard-bearer and is working pretty well in Massachusetts. The Recovery Act that helped us avoid a depression, a third of it was tax cuts. My hope is that the Republican Party, post election, steps back and says, 'Now that we're not so worried about beating the president, maybe we should spend a little time focusing on solving the problems.'" --Barack Obama

"[The Republican National Convention] was a rerun. We'd seen it before. You might as well have watched it on a black-and-white TV. If you didn't DVR it, let me recap it for you. Everything is bad, it's Obama's fault, and Gov. Romney is the only one who knows the secret to creating jobs and growing the economy. There was a lot of talk about hard truths and bold choices, but nobody ever actually bothered to tell you what they were." --Barack Obama, who knows a thing or two about reruns

"My expectation is that there will be some popping of the blister after this election, because it will have been such a stark choice." --Barack Obama

"[W]e didn't have the luxury of six months to explain exactly what we were doing with the Recovery Act, which was basically a jobs act and making-sure-middle-class-families-didn't-fall-into-poverty act. And there were all kinds of things we could do to have explained that effectively, but we didn't have time." --Barack Obama

"President Obama was a job creator from day one. It's important to know that more jobs in the private sector were created under the leadership of President Barack Obama in one year than in the eight years total of the Bush administration. So the facts have to be known to the people. The fact is, though, we're very proud of our record. We [were] one of the most productive Congresses in history." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

"[Republicans] lie and they don't care if people think they lie. As long as you lie, Joseph Goebbels, the big lie, you keep repeating it, you know. First of all, you've got Republicans who truly believe the earth is flat, so I don't know exactly what, you know, what's going to do, but they, I think that when people figure out that these people say they do not care about the truth and they will lie and they don't care if they lie because it doesn't matter if they lie." --California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton, who we guarantee couldn't name a single Republican who believes the earth is flat

"Over the longer term, I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United. Even if the amendment process falls short, it can shine a spotlight of the super-PAC phenomenon and help apply pressure for change." --Barack Obama

"[Paul Ryan] loves this line of 'our rights come from God and nature', which is so offensive to so much of America. Because for black people, Hispanic people and women, our rights do not come from God or nature. They were not recognized by the natural order of America. They come from the government and from legislation that happened in relatively recent history in America. So that line just bothers me to my core." --MSNBC's Tour??

"[Republicans] keep saying Chicago by the way, have you noticed? They keep saying Chicago. That's another thing that sends that message -- this guy's helping the poor people in the bad neighborhoods, screwing us in the 'burbs." --MSNBC's Chris Matthews insisting that the word "Chicago" is now a racist term

"Four years of covering Barack Obama, he does not play the race card. Not in a negative way. He does not do that." --New York Times White House correspondent Helene Cooper

"Would you concede that while many of the things you said were effective, some were not completely accurate?" --NBC's Matt Lauer to Paul Ryan

"Why is that that the Republicans have elected more women governors and have two Hispanic governors and the Democrats don't? [Democrats] don't have as many women governors and don't have Hispanic governors. Why do you think that is?" --NBC's Chuck Todd to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa

"I love that for Barack, there is no such thing as 'us' and 'them.'" --Michelle Obama

"I can say that we're in a better position than we were four years ago in our economy, in the sense that when this president took office, we were losing 800,000 jobs a month. And the quarter before he took office was the worst since the Great Depression and we are in a different place." --Obama senior adviser David Axelrod

"Look, let's be clear, we're way better off than we were four years ago." --Obama senior adviser Robert Gibbs

"I don't think we've ever seen a presidential campaign ever that's built on a foundation of absolute lies. And I think ultimately they're going to pay a price for that." --White House senior adviser David Plouffe, who surely meant to say "we're going to pay a price"

"I can't understand why any woman would want to vote for Mitt Romney." --former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright

"You know, I've been out on the road for the president the last few days, and I have to tell you that I'm not sure it matters who he sends out as his surrogate because the difference between his policies and Romney and Ryan's policies makes the case. I just share with women what the facts are: their record on violence against women, fair pay and reproductive health, access to health care, on economic policies and that's all they need to know. When you just share the facts with the American public, it makes the case for you." --30-something Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke, who needs taxpayers to buy her contraception

"It's always tough to amend the Constitution, and very risky to do so. But I think it's time, I think our country would be stronger and better if [the presidential election] went according to the popular vote." --Al Gore, who evidently still has hard feelings following the 2000 election

"Cooperation with Israel between our military and intelligence communities has never been closer. Assistance provided to Israel by the United States has never been greater than it has been under ... Obama. We have an extremely close relationship with Israel, which is appropriate given our unshakeable commitment to Israel's security." --White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, who neglected to mention that Democrats removed all reference to U.S. cooperation with Israel from their platform

"The Democrat Convention is being held at Charlotte's Time Warner Cable Arena, which makes sense. Because America called on Obama to fix things and he still hasn't showed up." --NewsBusted's Jodi Miller

"At a campaign rally, Michelle Obama encouraged people to 'get to the polls on November 2nd.' I don't usually support Obama voters, but this is a movement I could get behind." --Fred Thompson, noting that Election Day is Nov. 6

"Mitt Romney arrived in Tampa for the GOP Convention Tuesday, leading in the polls for president. His numbers are definitely improving. According to one poll, his support among African-Americans is zero percent, but that's up ten percent from the month before." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"A man in Florida has been arrested for wearing a President Obama mask while robbing a McDonald's. To show you how good this guy's disguise was, instead of a holdup note he was reading from a teleprompter." --comedian Jay Leno

"[T]he Jimmy Carter years look like the good old days compared to where we are now." --Paul Ryan

web posted September 3, 2012

"[Ann] Romney succeeded in conveying to the audience in the hall -- and, the campaign hopes, to the millions watching on television -- her love for her husband, her belief in his essential goodness, and, perhaps most importantly, her implicit faith in his abilities. 'This man will not fail,' she assured the audience near the end of her speech. 'This man will not let us down.' Mrs. Romney clearly believes that if she were flying in a plane, and the pilot died from a heart attack, Mitt Romney would find a way to land the plane safely. She wanted to communicate that faith to the audience, and she did." --Washington Examiner's Byron York

"When politicians said anything that suggested women working outside the home were neglecting their children ... they bristled with anger. 'Choice!' they screamed. Abortion must forever and ever be not only legal but celebrated and endorsed. Ann Romney presented a different view, one that I suspect makes a lot more sense for women under 50 and those over that age who never became advocates of the 'choice' movement. She showed that she shared the everyday experience of mothers, married and single, pro-choice and pro-life. An illuminating picture, one worth reflecting on for all of us." --political analyst Michael Barone

"[Chris] Christie's speech ... I thought was a mild disappointment. It was clearly rushed at the end and felt undisciplined and self-indulgent throughout (it took a very long time to mention the nominee). I loved the themes of the Christie's speech, however, and I think that the Romney campaign wanted different things from these speeches than I was looking for. Both Ann Romney and Christie seemed to be working harder at bolstering the Republican brand than the Mitt brand. Perhaps the target audiences they're going after need to be seduced into feeling okay to vote Republican before they can be convinced to vote for Romney. That's a good ambition, it seems to me, and if these speeches worked to that end that's great. Mildly disappointing those ... looking for more red meat is a small price to pay." --columnist Jonah Goldberg

"[The Republican National Convention] should be a pretty entertaining show. And I'm sure they'll have some wonderful things to say about me. But what you won't hear from them is a path forward that meets the challenges of our time." --Barack Obama

"I can't speak to Gov. Romney's motivations. What I can say is that he has signed up for positions, extreme positions, that are very consistent with positions that a number of House Republicans have taken." --Barack Obama

"I don't have as much time to campaign this time as I did in 2008, so this whole thing is riding on you making it happen." --Barack Obama in a letter to supporters, setting them up to take the blame for his loss

"Now, over the next two and a half months, the other side will spend more money than we have ever seen -- ever. I mean, they got folks writing $10 million checks, $20 million checks. They should be contributing that to a scholarship fund to send kids to college." --Barack Obama

"It is very rare I come to an event where I'm like the fifth or sixth most interesting person. Usually the folks want to take a picture with me, sit next to me, talk to me. That has not been the case at this event and I completely understand." --Barack Obama during his "NBA heroes" fundraising event

"We helped millions of families modify their mortgages so they could stay in their homes, and we helped more than a million refinance their mortgages saving $3,000 a year, but guess what? We could do it for another 12 million if the Republicans would just get out of the way, just get out the way. ... And it won't cost the government a penny." --Joe Biden

"There is a sickness out there in the Republican Party, and I'm not kidding. Maybe they don't like their moms or their first wives." --Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA)

"[T]he Republican Party has become a faith-based party. Starting with Ronald Reagan, there was a marriage between the Bible Belt of the south, fundamentalist Bible Belt of the south. ... [Paul Ryan] starts every consideration of public policy, not from the standpoint of science, but from the standpoint of faith. That's who Paul Ryan is. And they're not going to shut him up if he gets into the White House, I assure you." --Huffington Post editorial director Howard Fineman

"Paul Ryan ... may look young and hip and new generation, with his iPod full of heavy metal jams and his cute kids. But he's just a fresh face on a Taliban creed -- the evermore antediluvian, anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-gay conservative core." --New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd

"I've always believed that the real media bias is geographic. I've always believed that. It is because the media-industrial complex is located in New York City. That's why there are cultural biases built into the media. I've always believed that, but it's less political than people think it is." --NBC's Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd

"More than a dozen states have changed their voting laws to make it harder for Obama's base to vote. ... And there really was no problem of voter fraud in 2008 or in any previous elections that required these kind of laws. What required these kind of laws from the Republican Party's perspective was the election of Barack Obama and the fact that ... the country was changing, becoming more diverse. Rather than courting those voters, the GOP has decided, 'Let's just make it harder for them to vote in the next election.'" --The Nation Magazine's Ari Berman

"Actually, it would be better if energy prices went up because we need to develop alternative sources [of energy]. ... [Republicans are] doing the 'Drill, baby, drill' thing. They're trying to make a complicated issue emotional, and demagoguing it for the campaign." --Politico's Evan Thomas

"By the time voters go to the polls in November they'll be saying 'Praise the Lord' about ObamaCare." --Newsweek's Eleanor Clift

"Well, I think that worker probably has a good understanding of what's happened over the past four years in terms of the president coming in and seeing 800,000 jobs lost on the day that the president was being sworn in, and seeing the president moving pretty quickly to stem the losses, to turn the economy around. And over the past, you know, 27 months we've created 4.5 million private-sector jobs. That's more jobs than in the Bush recovery (or) in the Reagan recovery." --Obama campaign adviser Stephanie Cutter

"If you're a conservative woman and you believe in small government, then Barack Obama is your candidate." --line from the latest "Republican" Women for Obama ad, in which the women are registered Democrats who just play Republicans on TV

"I think Biden is like a sunny day to the middle-class families across this country who are looking for someone who is going to fight for them in the White House." --Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki

"White men should not have the power to tell women what our rights are. Period." --author Terry McMillan

"Given that only 15 percent of you turn to government assistance in tough times, we want to make sure you know about benefits that could help you." --USA.gov

"Ideological purity, compromise as weakness, a fundamentalist belief in scriptural literalism, denying science, unmoved by facts, undeterred by new information, a hostile fear of progress, a demonization of education, a need to control women's bodies, severe xenophobia, tribal mentality, intolerance of dissent and a pathological hatred of the U.S. government. ... They can call themselves the Tea Party. They can call themselves conservatives and they can even call themselves Republicans, though Republicans certainly shouldn't. But we should call them what they are. The American Taliban." --HBO's "The Newsroom"

"[E]very night on the news now, practically, is like a nature hike through the book of Revelations." --Al Gore in a preview of his latest climate scare-mongering slideshow

"President Obama is angry at Mitt Romney for suggesting that college students should 'borrow money from their parents.' Right. You should do what Obama does -- have them borrow money from their future children." --Fred Thompson

"Personally, I'm on a quest [at the Republican National Convention] to find all of these racist Republicans everyone at MSNBC keeps saying dominate the party. I thought I saw a Klansman, but it turned just to be someone with a totebag on their head to fight the rain." --columnist Jonah Goldberg

"Yeah, the Democratic National Convention goes second and has a chance of upstaging the Republicans, but I'm not sure how. Is there anything more tiresome than the thought of Obama giving another speech? I mean, the one Biden gives might be some comic relief, but they'll force him to stay on script and it will probably just be boring. But they have fake-Indian Elizabeth Warren! Won't American respond to yet another rich person whining about rich people? And then there is the dynamically unlikable Sandra Fluke taking on our nations greatest problem: how annoying it is to go to Walgreens and buy your own birth control." --humorist Frank J. Fleming

"President Obama passed up the chance to play golf in Washington Sunday to attend church at St. John's Episcopal with his family. It was an emotional experience for him. He felt the pain that all politicians feel when a collection plate goes by and it's not for them." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"They [were] worried that Tropical Storm Isaac [w]ould hit Florida during ... the Republican convention. But Florida [was] ready for it. Thanks to President Obama's economic policies, many businesses down there [were] already boarded up." --comedian Jay Leno

"[The president's] new slogan for his campaign is 'Forward.' Forward? A government that spends $1 trillion more than it takes in. An $800 billion stimulus that created more debt than jobs. A government intervention into health care paid for with higher taxes and cuts to Medicare. Scores of new rules and regulations. These ideas don't move us 'Forward,' these ideas move us 'Backwards.' These are tired and old big-government ideas that have failed every time and everywhere they've been tried. Ideas that people come to America to get away from. These are ideas that threaten to make America more like the rest of the world, instead of helping the rest of the world become more like America." -- Marco Rubio

"When I heard the current president say, 'You didn't build that,' I was first insulted, then I was angered, then I was saddened that anyone in our country, much less the president of the United States, believes that roads create business success and not the other way around. Anyone who so fundamentally misunderstands American greatness is uniquely unqualified to lead this great nation." -- Rand Paul

"Before I ran for district attorney, two Republicans invited my husband and me to lunch. And I knew a party-switch was exactly what they wanted. So, I told Chuck, we'll be polite, enjoy a free lunch and then say goodbye. But we talked about issues -- they never used the words Republican, or Democrat, conservative or liberal. We talked about many issues, like welfare -- is it a way of life, or a hand-up? Talked about the size of government -- how much should it tax families and small businesses? And when we left that lunch, we got in the car and I looked over at Chuck and said, 'I'll be damned, we're Republicans.'" -- Susana Martinez

"[The president's] policies have failed us. We're not better off than we were four years ago, and no rhetoric, bumper sticker or Hollywood campaign ad can change that. Mr. President, I'm here to tell you, the American people are awake, and we're not buying what you're selling in 2012." -- Mia Love

"Governor Romney promised that sometime between takin' the oath of office and going to the inaugural ball, he'd sit right down, grab a pen, and kick seven million young people off their parents' plan by repealing health reform. Day one, that's what he says he's gonna do. Maybe we should call his plan, 'Romney Doesn't Care.' 'Cause I do care! I do care." --Barack Obama

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