Say What? June 20, 2011 edition [Reader Post]

Liberals:

President Barack Obama, helping to explain the devastating unemployment numbers: “There’s some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers…You see it when you go to a bank and … you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller. Or you go to the airport, and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate”

President Obama: “Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected.”

Obama report: “U.S. forces are playing a constrained and supporting role in a multinational coalition, whose operations are both legitimated by and limited to the terms of a United Nations Security Council Resolution that authorizes the use of force solely to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under attack or threat of attack and to enforce a no-fly zone and an arms embargo.”

DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, answering, at what point do you (the Democratic party under Barack Obama) own the economy: “We own the economy. We own the beginning of the turnaround and we want to make sure that we continue that pace of recovery, not go back to the policies of the past under the Bush administration that put us in the ditch in the first place.”

Texas Congresswoman Shirley Jackson Lee: “Are you familiar with the Christian militants?  Can one might say that they might possibly want to undermine this country because right now the right for women to choose is a Constitutional right but people disagree with it but here is an individual trying to undermine the protections that are given to women? Would you suggest that might be compared to trying to undermine this country? That’s a possibility, is it not?”

Christopher Hahn, liberal business commentator on FoxNews: “[We need to] Return to the Clinton level of taxes to create jobs.”

Former Vice President Al Gore, who pays weak lip service to the cause of global warming in his personal life, wrote of Mitt Romney’s belief in global warming: “Good for Mitt Romney – though we’ve long passed the point where weak lip-service is enough on the Climate Crisis.  While other Republicans are running from the truth, he is sticking to his guns in the face of the anti-science wing of the Republican Party.”

Michelle Obama, of her teleprompter-toting husband: “See, what you all need to know about the President you helped to elect is that when it comes to the people he meets, Barack has a memory like a steel trap.  He has a gift in that way, able to retain information, know more than those who are briefing him, asking critical questions, because all of those wins and losses are not wins and losses for him [but] they are wins and losses for the folks whose stories he carries with him, the folks that he worries about and prays about before he goes to bed at night,”

Senate leader Harry Reid: “My most harrowing, one of my most difficult, scariest experiences of my life, there was a time when – still do- Las Vegas had a minor league hockey team, and I was asked to go out in the middle of that ice and drop a puck,” said Reid who noted he had been raised in the desert far from ice and snow.  “To walk out on that ice was my only heroism in hockey, my own heroism in convincing myself I should go out there.”

Chris Matthews, of Dick Cheney: “By the way, his name’s CHEE-nee, not CHAY-nay.”

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NPR’s “Newswoman” Andrea Seabrook reminisced about Anthony Weiner, calling him a “scrappy and passionate defender of heroes.”

Luke Russert on NBC’s Today on Weiner: “…this is really a sad ending, a lot would say, to what was once a bright, promising political career.”

Barbara Walters on Weiner’s resignation: “In a way it’s a tragedy.  He’s never had another job. What does he do after this?”

NBC’s congressional correspondent Kelly O’Donnell: “Anthony Weiner showed much of his strength as a Congressman in what he talked about just now in trying to talk about a message that was something other than this scandal.”

NBC’s Chuck Todd added: “…he [Weiner] was serving as sort of the bombastic angry progressive, you know, trying to almost be the anti-Tea Party liberal in Congress taking on these folks. He’d become sort of a hero to the more progressive left, who were always upset that Democrats don’t stand up for themselves. So here was the guy that had all this potential to become a huge political figure…”

Chris Matthews suggested that Anthony Weiner‘s resignation press conference was “sort of like the hanging of Saddam Hussein.”

Speaking of Weiner, Huffington Post’s Howard Fineman told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews Friday, “I also don’t think a lot of people loved the fact that he was on Fox a lot”

Do you recall such a love fest for Mark Foley, Newt Gingrich or any other Republican who resigned from office?

Liberals being civil:

CNN host Fareed Zakaria, in a Time magazine article, wrote:  “Conservatives now espouse ideas drawn from abstract principles with little regard to the realities of America’s present or past.”

Howard Dean, of the TEA party: “The values that they have sure aren’t the values of America today.  But they are an ever-shrinking minority and they will get more dangerous, more desperate as they shrink because demographics are not on their side; neither is intolerance or hate the way to build a great nation…this is about building a stronger American and turning away from the hate-wing of the Republican party.  Stop using fear and hate to motivate us…the future is ours; it does not belong to the TEA party, over 55, white and Christian.”

Chris Matthews: “The scariest thing, a guy of limited mental power, George W. Bush, talked this country [into the war in Iraq].”

Bill Maher: “Dick Cheney used to go out and shoot birds by the hundreds that were like in a cage. To me, that’s a lot more psychotic than anything Anthony Weiner ever did.”

Chris Shelton, vice president of Communication Workers of America District 1: “Welcome to Nazi Germany!  We have Adolf Christie and his two generals [Democratic state legislative leaders] trying to make New Jersey Nazi Germany. Are we going to let them?”  He later added: “It’s going to take World War III to get rid of Adolph Christie.”  He has since apologized for these remarks.

Bill Maher of Governor Chris Christie: “He should be Governor Fat Fatty;..this guy is a Sumo wrestler.”

Liberals making sense:

Woman refusing to sign a petition to ban ATM machines: “Do you know how stupid that sounds?”  I am only guessing she is a liberal.

Steve Colbert to Keith Olbermann: “Has it been painful in the last 145 days [of not being on the air] to live with the knowledge that Bill O’Reilly won?  …let’s face it, he jacked you so hard, you landed in Current TV.”

Kevin Nealon: “…there’s a difference between tweeting pictures of your penis and [Christie] just not being able to control his weight.”  I am assuming that he is a liberal.

White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley on Obama’s bureaucratic regulations: “Sometimes you can’t defend the indefensible.”

Conservatives:

Bill Jacobson‘s blogs: “The Washington Post thinks it’s “harassment” to request Michael Mann’s files from the University of Virginia (their Memorial Day editorial) but it’s cool with requesting and obtaining and asking for citizen-journalists to go through 24,000 of the State of Alaska’s emails involving Sarah Palin.”

Michele Bachman: “President Bachmann will allow you to buy any light bulb you want.”  I believe this is the year that incandescent bulbs will be phased out entirely.

Dennis Miller, commenting on CNN’s lame personal choice questions of the Republican candidates: “CNN or no TV in your house?”

John Layfield, FoxNews commentator: “Technology destroyed the entire outhouse cleaning industry.”

Heard on Forbes on Fox: “The Obama administration is pay for play on steroids.”

Degan McDowell, explaining the message of the many naked bikeriders this past week: “These folks just want to be nekid.”

Rush Limbaugh: “The welfare state destroys things and then claims to exist to provide a safety net for people whose lives they’ve destroyed.”

Rush Limbaugh: “The redistribution of wealth does not cause wealth creation.  This is plain old common sense.”

Rush: “Weren’t the failed policies of the past under Bush far better than the failed policies of today under Obama?  I mean, for crying out loud, folks, let’s be real.  The failed policies of the past, George W. Bush, okay, unemployment 5% versus 9.1% with Obama.  A GDP that was three times what it is today.  A deficit that was minuscule compared to Obama’s deficit.”

Rush: “How far along the line are we that a lot of Americans view the primary purpose of the federal government is to equalize outcomes in life, not opportunity, but to equalize outcomes?”

Conservatives from the Past:

Ronald Reagan: “The government is never more dangerous than when our desire to have it help us blinds us to it’s great power to harm us.”

From The Conservative Review #183 (HTML)  (PDF)