Pope Leo XIV was half an hour late for his audience with the Italian Winter Olympic and Paralympic committees because he was meeting with David Alexrod, Obama’s chief strategist, this morning.
Yes, there also is risk associated with changing course now, as there is little time left for a primary campaign--and campaigns are how we test candidates. (Re @RonDeSantis.) But there is a lot of leadership talent in the Democratic Party, poised to emerge.
On the December 15 edition of the "Axe Files" podcast, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough told David Axelrod the following about President Barack Obama. "I think this is the—our most Catholic of presidents. And I mean that by capital C Catholic, in what I see and what he does every day. It's not to say that he's—does everything entirely consistent with Catholic teaching. That's not the idea."
We'll, yes that is the idea. When someone says that Obama is "our most Catholic of presidents," surely the record should speak for itself. Here are some of Obama's views and policies that McDonough needs to explain.
CNSNews provides a long list of items showing that Obama isn't remotely the "most Catholic of presidents," not even close.
Some examples:
--Before he was elected in 2008, he said he would sign a bill, the Freedom of Choice Act, that would have forced Catholic hospitals to perform abortions.
--One of the first executive orders Obama signed after being sworn in on January 20, 2009 was to overturn the Mexico City Policy that denied federal funding of private organizations that perform and promote abortions abroad.
--On January 29, 2009, Obama said he looked forward to restoring U.S. aid to the U.N. Population Fund that pays for abortion.
--Obama supports partial-birth abortion, the procedure where a baby who is 80 percent born has his head pierced with a scissors.
--In 2008, Obama said the biggest mistake he ever made was to side with the parents of Terry Schiavo: they petitioned a federal court to allow their daughter food and medicine needed to live. Obama reversed himself, thus siding with those who said, just "let her die."
--When Obama spoke at Georgetown University in April 2009, his staff insisted that all religious symbols in the room where he was to speak had to be covered with a drape.
--Obama fought U.S. bishops for years—and is doing so now—trying to force Catholic non-profits to pay for abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization in their healthcare plans.
Bill Donohue asks: "If Obama is the 'most Catholic of presidents,' then why has he spent the last eight years sticking it to Catholics and the Catholic Church?"
Last week, David Axelrod told Sam Stein of the Huffington Post that Obama was going to back down on the Bush tax cuts.
President Barack Obama's top adviser suggested to The Huffington Post late Wednesday that the administration is ready to accept an across-the-board, temporary continuation of steep Bush-era tax cuts, including those for the wealthiest taxpayers.
That appears to be the only way, said David Axelrod, that middle-class taxpayers can keep their tax cuts, given the legislative and political realities facing Obama in the aftermath of last week's electoral defeat.
"We have to deal with the world as we find it," Axelrod said during an unusually candid and reflective 90-minute interview in his office, steps away from the Oval Office. "The world of what it takes to get this done."
"There are concerns," he added, that Congress will continue to kick the can down the road in the future by passing temporary extensions for the wealthy time and time again. "But I don't want to trade away security for the middle class in order to make that point."
It has been widely assumed that the president would have to accept an across-the-board deal of some kind, but Axelrod's remarks were the first public confirmation of that fact -- and by a figure regarded as closer to Obama than any other White House staffer.
Axelrod, on FOX News Sunday this morning, went wobbly on his previous statements.
[C]ontra what he told our Sam Stein, Axelrod says that Obama's position has not changed on tax cuts, he rules out a permanent extension of ALL the tax cuts. Just an extension of the "middle class" tax cuts. We don't have the money to spend on "millionaires and billionaires," he says. But what about a TEMPORARY extension of those upper level tax cuts? Axelrod says he "won't negotiate" that on the air. (He also won't answer that question...so, I guess the White House is open to it?)
Wallace goes fishing, and gets Axelrod to say that middle class tax cuts should continue, but we cannot "afford to permanently extend the tax cuts" on those upper income earners.
Let me translate from the original bullshit: The White House would LIKE to keep the "middle class tax cuts" and end "permanently" the tax cuts on the rich. But they'd probably compromise on a "temporary" extension of the latter. They have no leverage, though, AT ALL, because they gave all that up by punting before the election. So, they'll be forced to accept a "permanent" extension of all. And the policy people will say, "Veto that sucker" and the political people will sigh and say, "Sign that please." And who wins those fights?
Of course, the folks at the Huffington Post have an Axe to grind, given Axelrod's exploitation of the outlet for the White House's trial balloon.
Axelrod also was on Meet the Press today talking taxes.
President Barack Obama will not go along with a permanent extension of tax cuts for the wealthiest, presidential adviser David Axelrod said on Sunday, without closing the door to a temporary continuation.
"There's no bend on the permanent extension of tax cuts" for the wealthiest, a Republican proposal that Obama has long opposed, Axelrod said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
He did not respond directly when asked whether Obama would agree to tax legislation that couples a temporary extension for top earners with making permanent the current breaks for the middle-class.
"We are looking forward to sitting down with (congressional) leaders," Axelrod said. Obama has invited a bipartisan group of congressional leaders to dinner at the White House this week.
Forget the class warfare. Raising taxes is no way to stimulate the economy.
Obama is so busy playing politics that he's failing miserably as an effective executive.
President Barack Obama's push for a national health care overhaul is providing a financial windfall in the election offseason to Democratic consulting firms that are closely connected to the president and two top advisers.
Coalitions of interest groups running at least $24 million in pro-overhaul ads hired GMMB, which worked for Obama's 2008 campaign and whose partners include a top Obama campaign strategist. They also hired AKPD Message and Media, which was founded by David Axelrod, a top adviser to Obama's campaign and now to the White House. AKPD did work for Obama's campaign, and Axelrod's son Michael and Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe work there.
The firms were hired by Americans for Stable Quality Care and its predecessor, Healthy Economy Now. Each was formed by a coalition of interests with big stakes in health care policy, including the drug maker lobby PhRMA, the American Medical Association, the Service Employees International Union and Families USA, which calls itself "The Voice for Health Care Consumers."
Their ads press for changes in health care policy. Healthy Economy Now made one of the same arguments that Obama does: that health care costs are delaying the country's economic recovery and that changes are needed if the economy is to rebound.
There is no evidence that Axelrod directly profited from the group's ads. Axelrod took steps to separate himself from AKPD when he joined Obama's White House. AKPD owes him $2 million from his stock sale and will make preset payments over four years, starting with $350,000 on Dec. 31, according to Axelrod's personal financial disclosure report.
A larger issue is a network of relationships and overlapping interests that resembles some seen in past administrations and could prove a problem as Obama tries to win the public over on health care and fulfill his promise to change the way Washington works, said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a government watchdog group.
"Even if these are obvious bedfellows and kind of standard PR maneuvers, it still stands to undercut Obama's credibility," Krumholz said. "The potential takeaway from the public is 'friends in cahoots to engineer a grass roots result.'"
These revelations come at a terrible time for Obama, when citizens are becoming more informed on ObamaCare and are, of course, rejecting it.
In addition to the policy objections that many Americans have about government-run health care, we now have corruption issues in the White House.
All the "hope and change" rhetoric that Obama used to sway Americans to elect him seems very, very empty now.
Obama isn't looking like a transcendent, new breed of politician.
He's looking like a terrible disappointment.
The opposition Obama faces from the American people on his health care scheme is part of our democratic process. People have policy disagreements. Debate is to be expected in a free society.
What's really bad for Obama is the corruption that's bubbling to the surface. That's inexcusable.
It provides another reason for Americans to be extremely wary of Obama, his administration and the Democrats.
They have shown they can't be trusted. Their word is not good.
David Axelrod, who is fond of calling the town hall protestors astroturf mobs, appears to have a few conflict of interests with the health care reform proposals being put forward by his boss, President Obama.
Axelrod headed up AKPD Message and Media - a firm that the Obama presidential campaign paid more than $340 million to place ads for the candidate. He resigned on December 31 to join the administration, and the firm is now run by his son.
The problem is, he is still owed money by the firm. And wouldn't you like to know where that money is coming from?
How about from a coalition of businesses calling themselves "Healthy Economy Now (HEN)" connected to the health care debate?
Moran cites an article by Timothy J. Burger, Bloomberg:
HEN’s other members, according to its Web site, are the AARP, the biggest advocacy organization for retirees; the Advanced Medical Technology Association; the Business Roundtable; Families USA; the Service Employees International Union, all based in Washington, and the American Medical Association based in Chicago. PhRMA represents 28 drugmakers, including New York-based Pfizer Inc. and London-based GlaxoSmithKline Plc.
Republicans are aggressively seeking to capitalize on the AKPD connection, and the House Republican Conference distributed a one-page talking points memo Tuesday asserting the White House-PhRMA deal raises “serious questions as to whether the drug lobby is helping to bankroll a multimillion dollar severance package for one of the President’s senior advisers.”
The memo points out that the drug industry will profit handsomely from the deal and asks whether Axelrod “recused himself from the PhRMA ‘deal,’ or will he work to defend an agreement with an industry that is directly funding his son’s work, and indirectly funding his own $2 million severance package?”
Republicans may be "aggressively seeking to capitalize on the AKPD connection" to score political points. I understand that.
But isn't it a legitimate issue?
What really bothers me is the hypocrisy of Obama and his buddies, the holier-than-thou crap.
The Culture of Corruption is thriving at the White House.
The White House is now hoping that a viral chain letter will help revive prospects for a health care overhaul.
Officials are forwarding an e-mail authored by top Obama adviser David Axelrod and urging recipients to pass it along. The missive includes a handy list of "8 ways (health care) reform provides security and stability to those with or without coverage, 8 common myths about reform and 8 reasons we need health insurance reform now."
..."Across the country we are seeing vigorous debate about health insurance reform," Axelrod writes. "Unfortunately, some of the old tactics we know so well are back -- even the viral emails that fly unchecked and under the radar, spreading all sorts of lies and distortions."
He adds: "Right now, someone you know probably has a question about reform that could be answered by what's below. So what are you waiting for? Forward this email."
That's typical stuff.
What's not typical is that the e-mail has ended up in the inboxes of people who never asked to receive mailings from the White House.
There's something fishy about that.
How did the White House get the addresses?
Major Garrett tangled with White House press secretary Robert Gibbs about the unsolicited e-mails Americans are receiving.
Q Speaking of the e-mail, how was the list for who would receive it determined?
MR. GIBBS: I believe it's for people that have signed up to receive e-mail updates from the White House.
Q The reason I ask is I have received e-mails from people who did not, in any way, shape, or form, seek any communication from the White House, who have never registered on OFA, who have never registered on a campaign Web site --
MR. GIBBS: Well, hold on, let's --
Q Let me finish my question, let me finish my question.
MR. GIBBS: No, no, no, but let's be clear, because --
Q Let me finish my question.
MR. GIBBS: No, no, no, but let's be clear before you -- I'm going to give you a chance to finish your question. You've done this a couple of times, Major, and I just want to be very clear, okay. OFA -- no, no, no, no, don't look funny. OFA, whether Obama for America or Organizing for America has nothing to do with, never has had anything to do with what -- if you sign up for, through whitehouse.gov, to receive e-mails, so let's just -- the reason I interrupted you is because I want you to rephrase your question that doesn't continue to assume that --
Q Well, all I'm trying to get at is --
MR. GIBBS: -- somebody is violating the law and mixing up political --
Q -- I receive e-mails from people who have never, ever signed up for anything related to this White House, Senator Obama as a candidate, Senator Obama as anything, and have received e-mails from David Axelrod. How could that be?
MR. GIBBS: I'd have to look at who you said got the e-mail.
Q I mean, do you seek other pieces of information identifying who might be curious about health care outside of people who have asked for e-mails?
MR. GIBBS: I'm sorry, say that again.
Q Do you in any way seek databases or information about people who might be interested in health care?
MR. GIBBS: I will certainly check. I will certainly check. I am not under that impression. But again --
Q I mean, folks have emailed me -- I just want to know -- would like to know how they get an e-mail from the White House when they have never asked for one.
MR. GIBBS: I'd be interested to see who you got that e-mail from and whether or not they're on the list. I don't --
Q May I follow up politely on one of Major Garrett's --
MR. GIBBS: Well, let me -- let me finish needling Major.
Q -- this row, please.
MR. GIBBS: Again, I just want to be -- but I just want to be very --
Q So what you're telling me is I need to give you these people's e-mails so you can check them on a list? I'm just asking.
MR. GIBBS: Well, you're asking me if they're on a list.
Q No, they're telling me --
MR. GIBBS: If you can figure out a different way of checking without asking me to double-check the name, I'm happy to --
Q Perhaps I'm not phrasing this correctly. They're telling me they're not -- they can't be on a list because they never asked for an e-mail from the White House.
MR. GIBBS: Right, but what I'm saying is I don't -- I'd have to look and see --
Q So there's no -- you don't have an explanation for how someone who never signed up and never asked for anything from the White House would get an e-mail from David Axelrod?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I hesitate to give you an answer, because you might impugn the motives of the answer.
Q Why would you say that?
MR. GIBBS: Because of the way you phrased your follow-up. I'd have to look at what you got, Major. I don't -- I appreciate the fact that I have omnipotent clarity as to what you've received in your e-mail box today.
Q You don't have to have omnipotent clarity. You don't have to impugn anything. I'm telling you what I got -- e-mails from people who said they never asked anything from the White House --
MR. GIBBS: And I'm simply saying --
Q -- and yet they received something.
MR. GIBBS: We can -- let me go to someplace else that might be constructive.
Very fishy indeed.
Garrett discussed the issue with Greta Van Susteren.
MAJOR GARRETT: I have offered to give to Robert Gibbs and the White House some of the e-mails from people who've said they never asked for anything from the White House, never subscribed, never signed up. None of these e-mails that they have identified to me were forwarded to them.
I know many... I've gotten a lot of e-mails from people who think I'm a complete Internet idiot. 'Of course these were forwarded.' No, what I'm saying is these people contacted me because they were not forwarded. They received them directly from the White House.
All right. I've offered to give those to the White House to find out the answers to the questions I posed today.
At this hour, Greta, and I hope the situation changes, I've heard nothing back from Robert Gibbs. And I'm not alleging anything nefarious. I'm just trying to find out an answer to what is basically a simple question. If you've never asked the White House for anything about health care or any other subject...
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN: Where did they get your name?
GARRETT: How did they receive an e-mail? That's all I'm asking.
...
GARRETT: This may have to go to a Freedom of Information request. I don't know. All I know is... and Robert Gibbs, after the briefing, he and I had what I would describe as a spirited conversation.
He said, 'You should take what I say at the podium truthfully.'
I do. I always have.
He said to me at the podium, 'Provide the e-mails.'
I'm prepared to do that. I'm more than happy to discuss this anytime, anyplace.
Very strange.
The Obama administration so often acts as if it has something to hide.
Obama hasn't just broken his campaign promise of transparency. He's shattered it. He's pulverized it. _________________
"And my job is to shut other white people down when they want to interrupt."
"We have to, at the DNC, provide training. We have to teach them how to communicate, how to be sensitive, and how to shut their mouths if they're white."
"Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners, and if we kick 'em all out, you'll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts."
"When I would deny that there was a significant racist component in some of the politics on our side, it was because the people I hung out with were certainly not. When suddenly, this rock is turned over, there is this—'Oh shit, did I not see that?'"
----------------------------
"In any other scenario, Hillary Clinton's lying about her emails, and her pay-for-play relationship with the Clinton Foundation would be disqualifying issues. The only reason they're not disqualifying is because Donald Trump is a fundamentally more repellent, dishonest figure."
"I made a mistake in recalling the events of twelve years ago... I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by RPG fire. I was instead in a following aircraft."
"I would not look to the U.S. Constitution, if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012. I might look at the constitution of South Africa. That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights, had an independent judiciary. It really is, I think, a great piece of work that was done."
"The death of Andrew Breitbart disproves the adage that only the good die young."
--JULIAN BOND
"The National Institute of Health has said that it is a danger to women's health and safety of their families that for 30 years to be exposed to the prospects of pregnancy."
"Why did- Couldn't the President have said at that moment, way back in December of last year, 'no game playing. No hostage-taking. No terrorizing this country with the debt ceiling. I'm not going to negotiate with you guys. You can't play it that way.' Could he have done that?"
"I remember distinctly an image of--we were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at [Obama's] pant leg and his perfectly creased pant, and I'm thinking, a) he's going to be president and b) he'll be a very good president."
--DAVID BROOKS
"I feel like calling her back and smackin' her around."
"[I]f you go back to the year 2000, when we had an obvious disaster and - and saw that our voting process needed refinement, and we did that in the America Votes Act and made sure that we could iron out those kinks, now you have the Republicans, who want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws and literally - and very transparently - block access to the polls to voters who are more likely to vote Democratic candidates than Republican candidates. And it's nothing short of that blatant."
--DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ
"This is probably one of the worst times we've seen because the numbers of people elected to Congress. I went through this as co-chair of the arts caucus. In '94 people were elected simply to come here to kill the National Endowment for the Arts. Now they’re here to kill women."
"The protesters have proven today that they‘re not going away. It was a pretty rough night last night. You can imagine if people said, well, we just can‘t fight the power. Instead, this morning, they came by tens, by hundreds, by thousands. By midday today, it was easily more than 10,000, perhaps as many as 15,000 people on the square here in Madison. Not organized by anyone, just grassroots citizens who came out just like the Minutemen in 1776."
--JOHN NICHOLS
"They're sitting on the money, they're using it for their own -- they're putting it someplace else with no interest in helping you with your life, with that money. We've allowed them to take that. That's not theirs, that's a national resource, that's ours. We all have this -- we all benefit from this or we all suffer as a result of not having it. I think we need to go back to taxing these people at the proper rates."
"Why don't we just raise the taxes and let these folks have their collective bargaining, have their union representation and go back to their jobs? Raise the taxes on the wealthy."
"So I would urge my Republican colleagues, no matter how strongly they feel -- you know, we have three branches of government. We have a House. We have a Senate. We have a president. And all three of us are going to have to come together and give some, but it is playing with fire to risk the shutting down of the government."
"I'm Rebecca Kleefisch. I performed fellatio on all the talk show hosts in Milwaukee. And they endorsed me and that's how I became lieutenant governor."
"[Military leaders] tell us that childhood obesity isn’t just a public health issue; they tell us that it is not just an economic threat -- it is a national security threat as well."
"[Obama] has to realize that Mitch McConnell has virtually said so that politically he wants to cut out his heart and throw his liver to the dogs."
--DAN RATHER
"And the instructions are not to improvise a comedy sketch, but to elect a group of unqualified, unstable individuals who will do what they are told, in exchange for money and power, and march this nation as far backward as they can get, backward to Jim Crow, or backward to the breadlines of the '30s, or backward to hanging union organizers, or backward to the trusts and the robber barons.
"Result: the Tea Party. Vote backward, vote Tea Party. And if you are somehow indifferent to what is planned for next Tuesday, it is nothing short of an attempted use of democracy to end this democracy."
"I gotta wonder when people are gonna start wearing uniforms. I mean they've got an army out there in Alaska of militia people. You've got these guys going around acting like street thugs. I mean it isn't far from what we saw in the thirties, where all of a sudden, political parties started showing up in uniform."
"[Sharron Angle] is a moron on top of being evil...
I'd like to see her do this ad in the South Bronx. Come here, bitch. Come to New York and do it. I'm not praying for her. She's going to hell. She's going to hell, this bitch."
"So people have been hurting and I understand that. And it doesn't give them comfort or solace for me to tell them, you know, but for me, we'd be in a worldwide depression."
"And to play Dick Cheney, all I had to do was find my Dick Cheney. And you can find all the villainy in the world in your own heart, and that's what an actor's job is. I always say to kids, inside you is Hitler and Jesus. And you got to find the appropriate person and bring them out."
"Because I live in the District of Columbia which is so predominantly Democratic, I am a registered Democrat. But I am an avowed neutral. And to put that into practice, I take my young daughter into the voting booth and she votes for me. She's now 14. We've been doing this since she was about age 4. She's now quite informed."
"Sarah Palin's an idiot. Come on. This is a remarkably, stunningly, jaw-droppingly incompetent and mean woman."
"The Democrats may have moved into the center, but the Republicans have moved into a mental institution."
--AARON SORKIN
"Perhaps the greatest threat of all is the undermining of our Constitution and the systematic attack against the inalienable rights of the citizens of this nation, rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution. At the vanguard of this insidious attack is the Tea Party. This band of misguided citizens is moving perilously close to achieving villainous ends."
"Ah, the Tea Party, the nativist bed-wetters who somehow control our national dialogue. Yes, I call them the Pee Party, Jay, because they're always peeing in their pants about something. They're just, they're afraid of a mosque being built in New York. They're afraid of guns. You know, they think Obama, who like every other pussy Democrat has never said a single word about gun control, but they are very sure that he and his Negro army are coming after their guns.
You know what? If you think that he's coming after your guns, you need to get out of your chat room and have your house tested for lead. He's not coming after your guns or your Bible or your fishing pole or your chewing tobacco."
"That's a trade-off society is making because of very, very high medical costs, and a lack of willingness to say, you know, is spending a million dollars on that last three months of life for that patient, would it be better not to lay off those ten teachers and to make that trade-off in medical costs. But that;s called the 'Death Panel' and you're not supposed to have that discussion."
"[If Rush Limbaugh suffered a heart attack in my presence, I would] laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out. I never knew I had this much hate in me. But he deserves it."
--SARAH SPITZ
"You want freedom, you going to have to kill some crackers. You going to have to kill some of their babies."
"If this was Texas, which is the state that, that is directly on the border with Mexico, and they were calling for a measure like this, saying that they had a major issue with, you know, with undocumented people flooding their borders, I would say I would have to look twice at this.
"But this is a state that is a ways removed from the border. And, um, it just, it doesn't make sense to me that when you google this subject, if you put in 'Arizona S.B. 1070,' that you see a picture of the governor of Arizona meeting with President Obama in May of 2010. If you have direct linkage to the president, there are already National Guard troops on the border in Arizona."
"Tell [the Jews] to get the hell out of Palestine. Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land. It's not German. It's not Poland. [The Jews] can go home. Poland. Germany."
--HELEN THOMAS
"After the last eight years, it's good to have a president that knows what a library is."
--PAUL McCARTNEY
"By the way, I just want to point out I'm wearing my splash shield because I was told I was going to be in the splash zone (during Harry Smith's colonoscopy on live TV)."
--KATIE COURIC
"And that Word is, we have to give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the values of the Word."
----------------------------
"Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance or that people could start a business and be entrepreneurial and take risk, but not job loss because of a child with asthma or someone in the family is bipolar—you name it, any condition — is job-locking."
--NANCY PELOSI
"Back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as 'yellow, slant-eyed dogs' that believed in different gods. They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what's going on today?"
--TOM HANKS
"The 'White Right' is trying to set Barack up to be assassinated.... Here are Christians praying for God to kill Barack Obama."
--LOUIS FARRAKHAN
"I refuse to accept the notion that the United States of America is not going to lead the world economically throughout the 20th Century."
--JOE BIDEN
"Obama's critics keep blasting him for Chicago-style politics. So, fine. Channel your inner Al Capone and go gangsta against your foes. Let 'em know that if they aren't with you, they are against you, and will pay the price."
--ROLAND MARTIN
"Martha Coakley is running to fill the rest of Ted Kennedy's term, and her opponent is a far-right tea-bagger Republican."
--CHUCK SCHUMER
"I tell you what, if I lived in Massachusetts, I'd try to vote ten times. I don't know if they'd let me or not, but I'd try to. Yeah, that's right, I'd cheat to keep these bastards out. I would. 'Cause that's exactly what they are."
--ED SCHULTZ
"We also see how revved up the tea baggers are at the thought of hijacking health care reform and every chance we have at making progress in Washington."
--JOHN KERRY
"A few years ago, this guy (Obama) would have been getting us coffee."
--BILL CLINTON
"I didn't realize I had written a column defending Roman Polanski and minimized his crime - are you sure it was me? I mean, I? There is, apparently, more to this crime than it would seem, and it may sound like a hollow defense, but in Hollywood I am not sure a 13-year-old is really a 13-year-old."
--TOM SHALES
"Joe Wilson yelled 'You lie!' at a president who didn't. But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!"
--MAUREEN DOWD
"One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game... During the 7th inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez."
--DAVID LETTERMAN
"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life."
--SONIA SOTOMAYOR
"We all considered sexual abuse of minors as a moral evil, but had no understanding of its criminal nature."
--REMBERT WEAKLAND, Archbishop of Milwaukee 1977- 2002
"You know, you might want to look into this, [President Obama], because I think maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker, but he was so strung out on Oxycontin he missed his flight."
"Rush Limbaugh -- 'I hope the country fails.' I hope his kidneys fail."
----------------------------
"[Obama] told me I did a great job. The first lady said the same thing. I got a 'well done' from the president, I'm on cloud nine."
--WANDA SYKES
"Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less."
--COLIN POWELL
"[Tea Party goers are] just a bunch of wimpy, whiny, weasels who don't love their country."
--PAUL BEGALA
"I wouldn't want [gay marriage] to go to the United States Supreme Court now because that homophobe Antonin Scalia has too many votes on this current court."
--BARNEY FRANK
"Going forward, my mind will be open to every solution -- except one. We should not -- we must not -- and I will not -- raise taxes."
--JIM DOYLE, Liar
"He's a terrorist. Rush Limbaugh is a terrorist."
--JOY BEHAR
"You know, I just want to say to her (Sarah Palin), just very quickly...F--- you."
--JON STEWART
"Should I be worried about being a slave and being returned to slavery?"
--WHOOPI GOLDBERG
"I also believe that America is the greatest sin against God."
--FR. MICHAEL PFLEGER
"Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken. Today the reason for the Zionist regime's existence is questioned, and this regime is on its way to annihilation."
--MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD
"We'll be eight degrees hotter in ten, not ten but 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals."
--TED TURNER
"Look, [Mitt] Romney comes from a religion founded by a criminal who was anti-American, pro-slavery, and a rapist. And he comes from that lineage and says, 'I respect this religion fully.'"
--LAWRENCE O'DONNELL
"Mexico does not end at its borders... Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico."
--FELIPE CALDERON
"The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don't say, 'Well, I read a science fiction novel that told me it's not a problem.' If the crib's on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame retardant."
--AL GORE
"Don't fear the terrorists. They're mothers and fathers."
--ROSIE O'DONNELL
"Is America ready for a black president? Well, I say we just had a retarded one. When did being black become a bigger deterrent than being retarded?"
--CHRIS ROCK
"Shut the f--- up! Shut up if you can't take a joke [about President Bush]!"
--BARBRA STREISAND
"Right, oh, yeah, Happy 9/11! Celebrate the day, right?"
--JAMES BROLIN, Mr. Barbra Streisand
"I think President Bush very well may have signed an authorization for the 9/11 attacks."
--KEVIN BARRETT, UW-MADISON Lecturer
"I said what I said. I am not guilty."
--SADDAM HUSSEIN
"Terri will not be starved to death. Her nutrition and hydration will be taken away."
--MICHAEL SCHIAVO
"On the eve of the election last month my wife Judith and I were driving home late in the afternoon and turned on the radio for the traffic and weather. What we instantly got was a freak show of political pornography: lies, distortions, and half-truths -- half-truths being perhaps the blackest of all lies. "
--BILL MOYERS
"I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for."
--HOWARD DEAN
"The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents' or 'terrorists' or 'The Enemy.' They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win."
--MICHAEL MOORE
"And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the--of--the historical customs, religious customs."
"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president."
--HILLARY CLINTON
"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."
--BILL CLINTON
"And let me tell you something -- for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment."
--MICHELLE OBAMA
"If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a Jew, uh, as a janitor, makes me a warrior for the working class, I wear that with a badge of honor."
"[F]or most of my lifetime, the United States was such a dominant economic power, we were such a large market, our industry, our technology, our manufacturing was so significant that we always met the rest of the world economically on our terms. And now, because of the incredible rise of India and China and Brazil and other countries, the United States remains the largest economic and the largest market but there’s real competition out there. And that's potentially healthy. It makes -- Michelle was saying earlier I like tough questions because it keeps me on my toes. Well, this will keep America on its toes."
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"If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, 'We're gonna PUNISH OUR ENEMIES and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,' if they don't see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it's gonna be harder and that's why I think it's so important that people focus on voting on November 2."
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"We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but THEY GOTTA SIT IN BACK."
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"We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever... we absorbed it and we are stronger."
"We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers so I know whose ass to kick."
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"We're not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that's fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money. But, you know, part of the American way is, you know, you can just keep on making it if you’re providing a good product or you're providing good service. We don't want people to stop fulfilling the core responsibilities of the financial system to help grow the economy."
"It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure."
----------------------------
"But I -- I think that the most important thing for the public to understand is, we're not handling any of these cases any different than the Bush administration handled them all through 9/11."
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"One such translator was an American of Haitian descent, representative of the extraordinary work that our men and women in uniform do all around the world -- Navy CORPSE-MAN Christian [sic] Brossard. And lying on a gurney aboard the USNS Comfort, a woman asked Christopher: 'Where do you come from? What country? After my operation,' she said, 'I will pray for that country.' And in Creole, CORPSE-MAN Brossard responded, 'Etazini.' The United States of America."
----------------------------
"I hear that Dr. Joe Medicine Crow was around, and so I want to give a shout-out to that Congressional Medal of Honor winner. It's good to see you."
"I am going to teach [my daughters] first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."
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"The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice, savings, and INEFFICIENCIES to our health care system."
----------------------------
"Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it."
--BARACK OBAMA
NOTEWORTHY QUOTATIONS
"In a word, freedom is ever new. It is a challenge held out to each generation, and it must constantly be won over for the cause of good.... [A] democracy without values can lose its very soul."
--POPE BENEDICT XVI
"When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law engraved in the hearts of men and women, when it does not listen to the voice of conscience, it turns against humanity and society."
--POPE JOHN PAUL II
"We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop."
--MOTHER TERESA
"To promote choice for its own sake is more akin to self-indulgence than self-determination. It is the philosophy of a pre-schooler in a candy shop."
--BRIAN POLLARD, M.D.
"The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people."
--MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
"The house we hope to build is not for my generation but for yours. It is your future that matters. And I hope that when you are my age, you will be able to say as I have been able to say: We lived in freedom. We lived lives that were a statement, not an apology."
--RONALD REAGAN
"Liberalism is the philosophy of the stupid."
--MARK LEVIN
"We are Warriors forever."
--BO ELLIS
"I know how much you're supposed to enjoy every sandwich, you know."
