Say What? July 6th, 2011 Edition [Reader Post]

Liberals:

President Barack Obama: “Now, it would be nice if we could keep every tax break, but we can’t afford them. Because if we choose to keep those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, or for hedge fund managers and corporate jet owners, or for oil and gas companies pulling in huge profits without our help – then we’ll have to make even deeper cuts somewhere else. We’ve got to say to a student, `You don’t get a college scholarship.’ We have to say to a medical researcher, `You can’t do that cancer research.’ We might have to tell seniors, `You have to pay more for Medicare.’  That isn’t right, and it isn’t smart. We’ve got to cut the deficit, but we can do that while making investments in education, research, and technology that actually create jobs. We can live within our means while still investing in our future. That’s what we have to do.”

President Obama: “Look, I think that what we’ve seen in negotiations here in Washington is a lot of people say a lot of things to satisfy their base or to get on cable news.”

Senator Chuck Schumer on the White House unilaterally raising the debt limit, which has been already discussed privately: “I think it needs a little more exploration and study. It’s probably not right to pursue at this point and you wouldn’t want to go ahead and issue the debt and then have the courts reverse it.”

Joe Biden at national teamsters convention: “And don’t any of you, by the way, any of you guys vote Republican. . . . don’t come to me if you do! You’re on your own, Jack!”

Senate leader Harry Reid: “It’s time that we return to the fiscal discipline that Democrats brought to Washington in the 90’s.”  I guess he forgot who controlled the House and the Senate when the budget was balanced last.

Chris Hahn, Democratic strategist on FoxNews: “The free market and small government policies led us down this road—it’s how we got here.”  Like many liberals, on one day, they will accuse President George W. Bush of spending us into oblivion, and, on the next, claim that he was a small government guy.  He can be one of those guys; he can’t be both.

Chris Hahn: “Huntsman is the one guy that really has us Democrats worried.”  [quoted from memory]

Bill Clinton: “[Former ambassador and Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman is] quite an impressive man…[he is] refreshingly unhidebound” and “[he] comes across as a non-ideological conservative…[and] practical.”

Thom Hartmann: “[If the debt ceiling is not raised, then we should] close all federal buildings named after Ronald Reagan whose policies brought us this disaster”

MSNBC guest Sally Kohn: “Frankly, the Republicans here…the extreme right of the Republican party are acting like ideological terrorists. They’re literally willing to blow up our economy and the future of our nation to score a few political points. And I think this is the point where the President has to say `look, we don’t negotiate with ideological terrorist.'”

Rep. Barbara Lee of CA, speaking about a movement which is using billboards to reduce Black abortions: “I am deeply offended by the race-based billboards that are being displayed in my congressional district by the Radiance Foundation and Issues4life.  These billboards stigmatize women of color and perpetuate myths about parenting skills and the types of women who seek and use abortion services.”

A Planned Parenthood receptionist in Michigan City, Indiana in turning down a medicaid patient: “Your primary care doctor should be able to do [a Well Woman exam,] I mean, that’s what they’re there for.  They have the same services we have.”

Jeremiah Wright: “The media labeled me controversial…white folks said Columbus discovered America—they lied…when white folks say I am still controversial, they are still lying.”

The Liberal News:

ABC‘s John Donvan on 20-20’s Independence Day program: “[The founding fathers] were not gods, they were guys – guys who didn’t give women the vote and let slavery stand.”

Douglas Brinkley (on the same program): “When you look at the founding documents of our country, they are elastic; they are meant to be pulled and bent in different directions as each era dictates.”

Chris Matthews: “There are times when he [Bill Clinton] sounds like Jesus in the Temple.”

Liberals from the past:

Candidate Obama in 2008: “I cannot guarantee that it is going to be in the first 100 days. But what I can guarantee is that we will have in the first year an immigration bill that I strongly support and that I’m promoting. And I want to move that forward as quickly as possible.”  Remember, for a year, Obama could have pushed through almost anything, since he had big majorities in the House and Senate.

Liberals making sense:

President Obama: “I ran for President because I believed in an America where ordinary folks could get ahead; where if you worked hard, you could have a better life. That’s been my focus since I came into office, and that has to be our focus now. It’s one of the reasons why we’re working to reduce our nation’s deficit. Government has to start living within its means, just like families do. We have to cut the spending we can’t afford so we can put the economy on sounder footing, and give our businesses the confidence they need to grow and create jobs.”

Time Magazine‘s Mark Halperin: “I think he [Barack Obama] was kind of a dick yesterday.”

Robert Samuelson, reporter for the Washington Post: “[President Obama has] no plan to balance the budget—ever.” [I don’t know Samuelson’s affiliation; I put him here because he is a reporter].

Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a former Hillary Clinton fundraiser: “America needs a president who understands the special sauce of what it is that makes this country great.  The fact of his personal story of being half black and all that is a wonderful, inspiriting story. But it doesn’t qualify him to be president.”

Crosstalk:

Michele Bachmann: “I want my candidacy for the presidency of the United States to stand for a moment when we, the people, stand once again for the independence from a government that has gotten too big and spends too much and has taken away too much of our liberties. Government thinks it knows better. Government thinks it knows better how to spend our money. Government thinks it knows better how to make a better life for us. They think they create jobs. They even think they can make us healthier, but that’s not the case. We have to recapture the Founders’ vision of a constitutionally conservative government if we are to secure the promise for the future.”

Chris Matthews: “What is this…the Protestant Reformation? That somehow we’re going back to the purity of the original Christian church? We’re going back to the original perfection of slaveholders and how perfect they were and government is the enemy.”

Conservatives:

Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann: “I want you to know, as president of the United States, I look forward to creating real jobs for both the Treasury secretary and the president of the United States.”

Mitch McConnell: “And I will tell him [President Obama] the truth about requests by some in his party that we increase spending and raise taxes as a way of solving the debt and jobs crisis that precipitated the President’s request to raise the debt limit: Not only are they counterproductive from the standpoint of an economic recovery; they’re also politically impossible, since Republicans oppose tax hikes and Democrats have already shown they won’t raise taxes in a down economy.

“So let’s start by taking both proposals off the table and focus on what can actually pass Congress, and what will actually spur the private sector to invest in our future and create jobs.

“Those who are calling for tax hikes as a part of these debt discussions either have amnesia about the fate of similar votes just six months ago – when Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress as well as the White House – or they’re acting in bad faith, since we all know that including massive, job-killing tax hikes would be a poison pill. Let’s move past tax hikes, talk about what’s actually possible, and let’s talk about what has and hasn’t worked over the past two years.

“And on this second point, this much is clear: if government spending was the answer to an economic slowdown, we’d be in a boom right now. Instead, we’re facing record deficits and debt, and a seemingly endless stream of bad economic news. Despite massive spending increases by Democrats, millions have lost jobs.

“The problem here is that Washington spends too much. And that means Democrats are simply going to have to make the same kind of tough choices about Washington’s budget that most other Americans have been forced to make about their own budgets over the past two years. Last week, President Obama told a group of people he was prepared to bring down the deficit by trillions of dollars, but refused to list any of the ways he was willing to do it. All he did was list the things he refused to cut. And this weekend the President proposed even more deficit-financed spending, disguised as what he called an `investment’. He can’t have it both ways.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: “It’s not about rich versus poor. It’s not about an election. It’s about whether Washington will ever – ever – be held accountable for its mistakes.”

Newt Gingrich: “President Obama is the most successful food stamp president in American history.”

Laura Ingraham about 50% of the population who do not pay taxes: “Everyone is jumping into the wagon, and no one wants to pull.”

Charles Krauthammer: “I think what was really curious about the way the president answered the questions today. On Libya was, that he did it and as he said himself, promises made, promises kept. He is talking exclusively about process. He says I promise no boots on the ground, no boots on the ground. I promised America would lead at the beginning and then withdrawal and let others lead. I kept to that promise.  I would think that when you evaluating success of a war, it would be about, has it advanced American national interest in safety and security? It’s not in terms of has it vindicated a president’s prior words. It’s a very odd standard. Obama has done it on Afghanistan as well. In the speech he gave, he said, ya know, I promised as a candidate I would turn our resources to Afghanistan. I have done that. And then, now I promised I’d start withdrawing in July of this year, I’m starting that. This is a remarkable way to evaluate a war. It’s extremely self-preferential. Who cares if it fulfills a promise? Is it achieving its goal?”

Mary Walter, FoxNews contributor, on Obama possibly replacing Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner: “He [Obama] needs a business person in there, and I think it would be a really wise decision to get away from the academics and to get away from the thinkers—maybe someone who is a doer—maybe someone who pays his taxes.”

Rush Limbaugh: “Obama can brag that his pre-teenage daughters don’t wait ’til the last minute to finish their homework while he hasn’t even turned in last year’s budget — and he gets their ages wrong!”

Rush Limbaugh: “CBS/New York Times poll: 63% of the country believe it is headed in the wrong direction. Only 28% think it’s headed in the right direction. If the election were tomorrow, this is a slam-dunk landslide of historic proportions. That’s how bad it is, and in the White House, they know it.”

Rush: “We do not need to raise the debt ceiling.  There is no crisis.  There is no Armageddon.  This is stimulus and TARP all over again. This is the same lie repeated over and over again, the same attempt to make you think your country is coming to a screeching halt and is ending unless the debt ceiling is raised.”

Rush: “Shortly after this press conference the media’s gonna go out there and find some person whose life will effectively be over if the debt ceiling isn’t raised.  The endless parade of victims that the Democrats are famous for, it’s already in the works, I guarantee you. This huge list of horribles.”

From Conservative Review #185  (HTML)  (PDF)